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Many volumes contain introductions by well-known modern Authors 


written specially for The Modern Library 

















arian 


INTRODUCTION 


In reprinting this exquisite classic the publishers 
have honored me by wishing me to preface the little 
book with some passages from an old essay of mine 
expressive of my sense of its unique value. They 
have thought also that in this hour of the immeas- 
urable loss which literature has sustained through 
the author’s death, I might find it fit to testify my 
admiration of all his work, and so, as it were, bring | 
my criticism up to date. But in eternity there are | 


' no dates; all moments are contemporaneous, and I 
could add nothing now to the witness I have always | 
“borne to my belief in that immortality of his on 


h which he entered long ago. 


I might speak of my personal grief for the earthly 


Sending of a friendship which began half a hundred | 


_ years ago; but that could effect nothing where all 
tears were in vain. It is the fate of most novelists 


_ to be associated in the minds of readers with a cer- 
“tain type of heroine, or with a single heroine. If _ 


it is a type that represents the novelist he is not 


_unfairly used; for the type may be varied into dis- 
“tinctive characters; if it is a single character it seems 


“ 


i 


il ; INTRODUCTION 
not so just, for every novelist has invented many 
characters. Mr. Henry James, for instance, has 
given us more, and more finely, yet strongly, dif- 
ferenced heroines than any novelist of his time, but 
at the mention of his name a single creation of his 
will come so prominently to mind that Daisy Miller 
will for the moment make us forget all her sisters. 
Mr. James’s time is still ours, and while perfect 
artistry is prized in literature, it is likely to be pro- 
longed indefinitely beyond our time. But he be- 
longs pre-eminently to that period following the 
Civil War when our authorship felt the rising tide 
of national life in an impulse to work of the highest 
refinement, the most essential truth. The tendency 
was then toward a subtile beauty, which he more 
| than any other American writer has expressed in 
his form, and toward a keen, humorous, penetrating 
self-criticism, which seized with joy upon the ex- 
panding national life, and made it the material of 
fiction as truly national as any yet known. “The 
finer female sense,’ in whose favor the prosperity 
of our fiction resides, Mr. James lastingly piqued, 
and to read him if for nothing but to condemn him 
is the high intellectual experience of the daughters 
of mothers whose indignant girlhood resented while 
»it adored his portraits of American women. To 
senjoy his work, to feel its rare excellence, both in 
conception and expression is a brevet of intellectual 


=. 


INTRODUCTION iii 


good form which the women who have it prize at 
all its worth. 

Mr. James is not quite the inventor of the inter- 
national novel, but he is the inventor, beyond ques- 
tion, of the international American girl. He recog- 
nized and portrayed the innocently adventuring, un- 
consciously periculant American maiden, who 
hastened to efface herself almost as soon as she saw 
herself in that still flattering if a little mocking | 
mirror, so that between two sojourns in Europe, a 
decade apart, she had time to fade from the vision 
of the friendly spectator. In 1860-70, you saw her 
and heard her everywhere on the European conti- 
nent; in 1870-80, you sought her in vain amidst the 
monuments of art, or on the misty mountain-tops, 
or at the tables d’hote. Her passing might have 
been the effect of a more instructed civilization, or 
it might have been a spontaneous and voluntary dis-. 
appearance. In any case she was gone, and it seemed 
a pity, for she was sweet, and harmless, with a 
charm derived from our earth and sky, a flavor of 
new-world conditions imparting its wilding fra- 
grance to that strange environment as freely as to its 
native air. I could well fancy her discoverer feeling 
a pang of desolation to find no longer in the living 
world this lovely creature, who perished as it were 
of her own impossibility, and whose faded ghost has 
no habitat but in his faithful page. 

It is a curious and interesting fact of Mr. James’s 


1V ee = INTRODUCTION 
literary fortunes that in his short stories—one is 
obliged™to call them stories for want of a more 
closely fitting word—rather than his more extended 
fictions are the heroes and the heroines we know him 
best by. He has the art of so environing the slight- 
est presentment of female motive that it shows life- 
size in the narrow space of a sketch or study ; and 
you remember such a picture with a fullness of de- 
tail and a particularity wanting to many colossal 
figures. You seem in the retrospect to have lived a 
long time with the pictures, looks, attitudes; phrases 
remain with you; and when you revert to the book 
you do not lose this sense of rich amplitude. 

No other novelist has approached Mr. James in 
his appreciation of women, and in his ability to 


suggest the charm which is never wholly absent 


from women, whether they are good, bad, or indif- 
ferent in looks or behavior. Take all the other men 
that have written novels in English and match their 
women with his, and they seem not to have written 
of women at all. A few women may vie with him 
in the protrayal of a few figures; Jane Austen may, 
and Fanny Burney, and Miss Edgeworth, and 
George Eliot, and the Brontés, and Mrs. Humphry 
Ward; but their heroines are as much outnumbered 
by his as the novelists are in every other way sur- 
passed. The fact is not affected by the want of 
general recognition ; it is not yet known to the igno- 
rant masses of educated people that Mr. James is 


INTRODUCTION 


one of the greatest masters of fiction who has ever 
lived. It is because he has worked in a fashion 
of his own, in regions of inquiry not traversed by 
the herd of adventurers, and dealt with material not 
exploited before that he is still to the critical Jews 
a stumbling-block and to the critical Greeks foolish- 
ness. But time will inevitably care for this un- 
rivalled artist, or this unique psychologist who deals 
artist-wise with his knowledge of human nature; 
and he will yet take that eminent place for which 
he has no rival. 

I cannot, in thinking of him and his somewhat 
baffling failure of immediate acceptance, promise 
_ myself that his right will be acknowledged soon; his 
own generation, in its superior refinement, was better 
fitted to appreciate him than the present period 
coarsened and vulgarized by the prevalence of 
puerile romance; and yet if his earliest masterpiece 
had been offered to this thicker-witted time, I doubt 
if it would have suffered the same injustice which 
it met from a more enlightened tribunal, or at least 
the same kind of injustice. It is pathetic to remem- 
ber how “Daisy Miller’ was received, or rather 
rejected, as an attack on American girlhood, and 
yet it is perfectly intelligible that it should have been 
taken so by Americans who had still a country to be 
so inclusively proud of that they could not bear the 
shadow of question to fall upon any phase of it. 
Our political descent to the European level has not 


vi INTRODUCTION 


only thickened our skins, but it has in a manner so 
broadened, though it has imbruted our minds, that 
if she could have come again we should see Daisy 
Miller’s innocent freedom in the face of imme- 
morial convention with the liberal and tolerant 
pleasure which the English at once felt in it. We 
should not be blinded to her charm, or to the subtile 
patriotism which divined and portrayed it, by a — 
patriotism which, if fervent and generous, was not - 
so subtile as the author’s. But as I have said, Daisy 
Miller cannot come again. The very conditions that 
would render us patient of her now have rendered 
her impossibility impossible. It is a melancholy 
paradox, but we need not be inconsolable, for though 
she has perished forever from the world, we have 
her spiritual reflex still vivid in the sensitive mir- 
ror which caught with such accuracy her girlish per- 
sonality while it still walked the earth in the dusty 
ways of European travel. 

The story of Daisy Miller is as slipht as Mr. 
James delights to make the frame of his picture, 
which depends so very little for its quality upon 
the frame. She is first seen at_Vevey in Switzer- 
land, with her young but terribly mature little 
brother and their mother, a little, lonely American 
group in the rather impertinent custody of a courier 
whom they make their domestic if not social equal; 
and she is seen last at Rome (where indeed she dies 
of the fever), the wonder of the international and 


te opprobrium of the compatriotic soci 
i drama as arises from the simple circumstances 
| piiettes itself in a few spare incidents which, 












INTRODUCTIO® 


the retrospect, dwindle to nothing. before the supe- 


rior interest of the psychology/ A girl of the later 
| eighteen-seventies, sent with such a mother as hers 


to Europe by a father who remains making money 


| in Schenectady, after no more experience of the 
| world than she had got in her native town, and at 


a number of New York dinners among people of 
like tradition ; uncultivated but not rude, reckless but 
not bold, inexpugnably ignorant of the convention- 


ally right, and spiritedly resentful of control by 


criterions that offend her own sense of things, she 
goes about Europe doing exactly what she would do 
at home, from an innocence as guileless as that 
which shaped her conduct in her native town. She 
knows no harm and she means none; she loves life, 
and talking, and singing, and dancing, and “atten- 
tions,” but she is no flirt, and she is essentially 
and infinitely far from worse. Her whole career, as 
the reader is acquainted with it, is seen through the 
privity of the young Europeanized American who 
‘meets her at Vevey and follows her to Rome in a 
fascination which they have for each other, but 
which is never explicitly a passion. This side of the 
affair is of course managed with the fine adroitness 
of Mr. James’s mastery; from the first moment the 
sense of their potential love is a delicate pleasure 






Mader, till at the last it is a delicate pang 
“1 the girl has run her wild gantlet and is dead 
not only of the Roman fever but of the blows dealt 
her in her course. There is a curious sort of fatality 
in it all, She is destined by innate and acquired 
indiscipline to do the things she does; and she is 
- not the less doomed to suffer the things she suffers. 
In proportion to the offence she gives by her lawless 
innocence the things she does are slight things, but 
their consequences break her heart, and leave the 
reader’s aching, as Winterbourne’s must have ached 
life-long. 

The perfection of the workmanship in this little 
book could not be represented without an apparent 
exaggeration which would wrong its scrupulous but 
most sufficient expression. If no word could be 
spared without in some degree spoiling it, none 
could be added without cumbering its beauty with 
a vain decoration. To quote from it at all is to 
wish to quote it all; and one resigns one’s self the 
more easily to the impossibility of giving a notion 
of the perfection of the performance in view of 
the impossibility of imparting a due sense, at sec- 
ond hand, of the loveliness and truth of the con- 
ception. 

The reader must go to the book for both, and 
when he has read it I think he will agree with me 
that never was any civilization offered a more pre- 
cious tribute than that which a great artist paid ours 


INTRODUCTION ix 


in the character of Daisy Miller. But our civiliza- 
tion could not imagine the sincerity in which the 
tribute was offered. It could not realize that Daisy 
Miller was presented in her divine innocence, her 
inextinguishable trust in herself and others, as the 
supreme effect of the American attitude toward 
womanhood. 
W. D. HowELLs. 








DAISY MILLER 


1) 





Revie luge 


Art the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there 
is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, in- 
deed, many hotels; for the entertainment of tourists 
is the business of the place, which, as many trav- 
ellers will remember, is seated trpon the edge of a 
remarkably blue lake—a lake that it behooves every 
tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an 
unbroken array of establishments of this order, of 
every category, from the “grand hotel” of the new- 
est fashion, with a chalk-white front, a hundred 
balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof, to 
the little Swiss pension of an elder day, with its 
name inscribed in German-looking lettering upon a 
pink or yellow wall, and an awkward summer-house 
in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels at 
Vevey, however, is famous, even classical, being 
distinguished from many of its upstart neighbors 
by an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this 
region, in the month of June, American travellers 
are extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, that 
Vevey assumes at this period some of the character- 


= 


4 DAISY MILLER 


istics of an American watering-place. There are 
sights and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo, 
of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither 
and thither of “stylish” young girls, a rustling of 
muslin flounces, a rattle of dance-music in the morn- 
ing hours, a sound of high-pitched voices at all 
times. You receive an impression of these things 
at the excellent inn of the Trois Couronnes, and 
are transported in fancy to the Ocean House or to 
Congress Hall. But at the Trois Couronnes, it must 
be added, there are other features that are much 
at variance with these suggestions: neat German 
waiters, who look like secretaries of legation; Rus- 
sian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish 
boys walking about, held by the hand, with their 
governors; a view of the sunny crest of the Dent 
du Midi and the picturesque towers of the Castle of 
Chillon. 

I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the 
differences that were uppermost in the mind of a 
young American, who, two or three years ago, sat 
in the garden of the Trois Couronnes, looking about 
him, rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I 
have mentioned. It was a beautiful summer morn- 
ing, and in whatever fashion the young American 
looked at things they must have seemed to him 

\ charming. He had come from Geneva the day be- 
\fore by the little steamer to see his aunt, who was 
Staying at the hotel—Geneva having been for a 


DAISY MILLER 5 


long time his place of residence. But his aunt had 
a headache—his aunt had almost always a headache 
—and now she was shut up in her room, smelling 
camphor, so that he was at liberty to wander about. 
_ He was some seven-and-twenty years of age. When 
his friends spoke of him, they usually said that he 
was at Geneva “studying”; when his enemies spoke 
of him, they said—but, after all, he had no enemies; 
he was an extremely amiable fellow, and univer- 
sally liked. What I should say is, simply, that 
when certain persons spoke of him they affirmed that 
the reason of his spending so much time at Geneva 
was that he was extremely devoted to a lady who 
lived there—a foreign lady—a person older than 
himself. Very few Americans—indeed I think 
none—had ever seen this lady, about whom there 
were some singular stories. But Winterbourne had 
an old attachment for the little metropolis of Cal- 
vinism; he had been put to school there as a boy, 
and he had afterwards gone to college there—cir- 
cumstances which had led to his forming a great 
many youthful friendships. Many of these he had 
kept, and they were a source of great satisfaction 
to him. 

After knocking at his aunt’s door, and learning 
that she was indisposed, he had taken a walk about 
the town, and then he had come in to his break- 
fast. He had now finished his breakfast; but 
he was drinking a small cup of coffee, which 


6 DAIS Yew 


had been served to him on a little table in the 
garden by one of the waiters who looked like an 
attaché. At last he finished his coffee and lit a 
cigarette. Presently a small boy came walking 
along the path—an urchin of nine or ten. The 
child, who was diminutive for his years, had an 
aged expression of countenance: a pale complexion, 
and sharp little features. He was dressed in knick- 
erbockers, with red stockings, which displayed his 
poor little spindle-shanks; he also wore a brilliant 
red cravat. He carried in his hand a long alpen- 
stock, the sharp point of which he thrust into every- 
thing that he approached—the flower-beds, the 
garden-benches, the trains of the ladies’ dresses. In 
front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him 
with a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes. 

“Will you give me a lump of sugar?” he asked, 
in a sharp, hard little voice—a voice immature, and 
yet, somehow, not young. 

Winterbourne glanced at the small table near 
him, on which his coffee-service rested, and saw 
that several morsels of sugar remained. “Yes, you 
may take one,” he answered; “but I don’t think 
sugar is good for little boys.” 

This little boy stepped forward and carefully se- 
lected three of the coveted fragments, two of which 
he buried in the pocket of his knickerbockers, depos- 
iting the other as promptly in another place. He 
poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winter- 


DAISY MILLER 7 


bourne’s bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar 
with his teeth. 

“Oh, blazes; it’s har-r-d!’’ he exclaimed, pro- 
nouncing the adjective in a peculiar manner. 

Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he 
might have the honor of claiming him as a fellow- 
countryman. “Take care you don’t hurt your 
teeth,” he said, paternally. 

“T haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all 
come out. I have only got seven teeth. My mother 
counted them last night, and one came out right 
afterwards. She said she’d slap me if any more 
came out. Ican’t helpit. It’s this old Europe. It’ 
the climate that makes them come out. In Americ 
they didn’t come out. It’s these hotels.” 

Winterbourne was much amused. “If you ea’ 
three lumps of sugar, your mother will certain] 
slap you,” he said. Ae 

“She’s got to give me some candy, then,” re- 
joined his young interlocutor. “I can’t get any 
candy here—any American candy. American 
candy’s the best candy.” 

“And are American little boys the best little 
boys?” asked Winterbourne. 

“T don’t know. I’m an American boy,” said the 
child. 

“T see you are one of the best!’ laughed Winter- 
bourne. 

“Are you an American man?” pursued this viva- 


Be an 


8 DAISY MILLER 


cious infant. And then, on Winterbourne’s affrma- 
tive reply—“American men are the best!” he de- 
clared. 

His companion thanked him for the compliment: 
and the child, who had now got astride of his 
alpenstock, stood looking about him, while he 
attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne 
wondered if he himself had been like this in his 
infancy, for he had been brought to Europe at about 
this age. 7 

“Here comes my sister!” cried the child, in a 
moment. “She’s an American girl.” 

Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a 
Heautiful young lady advancing. “American girls 
fire the best girls!” he said, cheerfully, to his young 
companion. | 

“My sister ain’t the best!’ the child declared. 
“She's always blowing at me.” 

“I imagine that is your fault, not. hers,” said 
Winterbourne. The young lady meanwhile had 
drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with 
a hundred frills and, flounces, and knots of pale- 
colored ribbon. She was bareheaded; but she bal- 
anced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep 
border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, ad- 
mirably pretty. “How pretty they are!” thought 
Winterbourne, straightening himself in his seat, as 
if he were prepared to rise. 

The young lady paused in front of his bench, near 


DAISY MILLER 9 


the parapet of the garden, which overlooked the 
lake. The little boy had now converted his alpen- 
stock into a vaulting-pole, by the aid of which he 
was springing about in the gravel, and kicking it 
up a little. 

“Randolph,” said the young lady, “what are you 
doing?” 

“'m going up the Alps,” replied Randolph. 
“This is the way!’ And he gave another little 
jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne’s 
ears. 

“That’s the way they come down,” said Winter- 
bourne. 

“He’s an American man!” cried Randolph, in 
his little hard voice. 

The young lady gave no heed to this announce- 
ment, but looked straight at her brother. “Well, 
I guess you had better be quiet,” she simply ob- 
served. 

It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in 
a manner presented. He got up and stepped slowly 
towards the young girl, throwing away his cigar- 
ette. “This little boy and I have made acquaint- 
ance,’ he said, with great civility. In Geneva, as 
he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not 
at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except 
under certain rarely occurring conditions; but here 
at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these ? 
—a pretty American girl coming and standing in 


Ke) DATSY? MILLER 


front of you in a garden. This pretty American 
girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne’s observa- 
tion, simply glanced at him; she then turned her head 
and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the 
opposite mountains. He wondered whether he had 
gone too far; but he decided that he must advance 
farther, rather than retreat. While he was think- 
ing of something else to say, the sats lady turned 
to the little boy again. 

“T should like to know where you got that pole?” 
she said. 

“T bought it,” responded Randolph. 

“You don’t mean to say you’re going to take it 
to Italy?” 

“Yes, I am going to take it to Italy,” the child 
declared. . 

The young girl glanced over the front of her 
dress, and smoothed out a knot or two of ribbon. 
Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect again. 
“Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere,” 
she said, after a moment. 

“Are you going to Italy?’ Winterbourne in- 
quired, in a tone of great respect. 

The young lady glanced at him again. “Yes, sir,” 
she replied. And she said nothing more. 

“Are you—a—going over the Simplon?” Winter- 
bourne pursued, ~a little embarrassed. 

“T don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it’s some 


DAIS Yo uMIGLER: II 


mountain. Randolph, what mountain are we going 
over?” 

“Going where?” the child demanded. 

“To Italy,” Winterbourne explained. 

“T don’t know,” said Randolph. “I don’t want 
to go to Italy. I want to go to America.” 

“Oh, Italy is a beautiful place!” rejoined the 
young man. 

“Can you get candy there?’ Randolph loudly 
inquired. 

“T hope not,” said his sister. “I guess you have 
had enough candy, and mother thinks so, too.” 

“T haven’t had any for ever so long—for a hun- 
dred weeks!” cried the boy, still jumping about. 

The young lady inspected her flounces and 
smoothed her ribbons again, and Winterbourne 
presently risked an observation upon the beauty of 
the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for 
he had begun to perceive that she was not in the 
least embarrassed herself. There had not been the 
slightest alteration in her charming complexion; she 
was evidently neither offended nor fluttered. If she 
looked another way when he spoke to her, and 
seemed not particularly to hear him, this was simply 
her habit, her manner. Yet, as he talked a little 
more, and pointed out some of the objects of interest 
in the view, with which she appeared quite unac- 
quainted, she gradually gave him more of the bene- 


12 DAISY “MILLER 


fit of her glance; and then he saw that this glance 
was perfectly direct and unshrinking. It was not, 
however, what would have been called an immodest 
glance, for the young girl’s eyes were singularly 
honest and fresh. They were wonderfully pretty 
eyes; and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for 
a long time anything prettier than his fair country- 
woman’s various features—her complexion, her 
nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish 
for feminine beauty; he was addicted to observing 
and analyzing it; and as regards this young lady’s 
face he made several observations. It was not at 
all insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; and 
though it was eminently delicate, Winterbourne men- 
tally accused it—very forgivingly—of a want of 
finish. He thought it very possible that Master 
Randolph’s sister was a coquette; he was sure she 
had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, 
superficial little visage there was no mockery, no 
irony. Before long it became obvious that she was 
much disposed towards conversation. She told him 
that they were going to Rome for the winter—she 
and her mother and Randolph. She asked him if 
he was a “real American’; she shouldn’t have 
taken him for one; he seemed more like a German 
—this was said after a little hesitation—especially 
when he spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered 
that he had met Germans who spoke like Americans ; 
but that he had not, so far as he remembered, met 


; y? 


DAISY MILLER 13 


an American who spoke like a German. Then he 
asked her if she should not be more comfortable in 
sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted. 
She answered that she liked standing up and walk- 
ing about; but she presently sat down. She told 
him she was from New York State—“if you know 
where that is.”’ Winterbourne learned more about 
her by catching hold of her small, slippery brother, 
and making him stand a few minutes by his side. 

“Tell me your name, my boy,” he said. 

“Randolph C. Miller,’ said the boy, sharply. 
“And I'll tell you her name;” and he levelled his 
alpenstock at his sister. 

“You had better wait till you are asked!” said 
this young lady, calmly. 

“T should like very much to know your name,” 
said Winterbourne. 

“Her name is Daisy Miller!’ cried the child. 
“But that isn’t her real name; that isn’t her name on 
her cards.” 

“It’s a pity you haven’t got one of my cards!” 
said Miss Miller. 

“Her real name is Annie P. Miller,” the boy 
went on. 

“Ask him his name,” said his sister, indicating 
Winterbourne. 

But on this point Randolph seemed perfectly 
indifferent; he continued to supply information in 
regard to his own family. “My father’s name is 


14 DAISY MILLER 


Ezra B. Miller,” he announced. ‘My father ain't in 
Europe; my father’s in a better place than Europe.” 

Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this 
was the manner in which the child had been taught 
to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to the 
sphere of celestial rewards. But Randolph immedi- 
ately added, “My father’s in Schenectady. He’s got 
a big business. My father’s rich, you bet!” 

“Well!” ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering her 
parasol and looking at thé embroidered border. 
Winterbourne presently released the child, who de- 
parted, dragging his alpenstock along the path. “He 
doesn’t like Europe,” said the young girl. “He 
wants to go back.” 

“To Schenectady, you mean?” 

“Yes; he wants to go right home. He hasn’t got 
any boys here. There is one boy here, but he al- 
ways goes round with a teacher; they won’t let him 
play.” 

“And your brother hasn’t any teacher?” Winter- 
bourne inquired. 

“Mother thought of getting him one to travel 
round with us. There was a lady told her of a very 
good teacher ; an American lady—perhaps you know 
her—Mrs. Sanders. I think she came from Boston. 
She told her of this teacher, and we thought of 
getting him to travel round with us. But Randolph 
said he didn’t want a teacher travelling round with 
us. He said he wouldn’t have lessons when he was 


DAISY MILLER Is 


in the cars. And we are in the cars about half 
the time. There was an English lady we met in 
the cars—I think her name was Miss Featherstone; 
perhaps you know her. She wanted to know why I 
didn’t give Randolph lessons—give him ‘instruc- 
tions,’ she called it. I guess he could give me more 
instruction than I could give him. He’s very 
smart.” 

“Yes,” said Winterbourne; “he seems very 
smart.” 

“Mother’s going to get a teacher for him as soon 
as we get to Italy. Can you get good teachers in 
iat! | 

“Very good, I should think,” said Winterbourne. 

“Or else she’s going to find some school. He 
ought to learn some more. He’s only nine. He’s 
going to college.’ And in this way Miss Miller 
continued to converse upon the affairs of her family, 
and upon other topics. She sat there with her ex- 
tremely pretty hands, ornamented with very bril- 
liant rings, folded in her lap, and with her pretty 
eyes now resting upon those of Winterbourne, now 
wandering over the garden, the people who passed 
by, and the beautiful view. She talked to Winter- 
bourne as if she had known him a long time. He 
found it very pleasant. It was many years since 
he had heard a young girl talk so much. It might 
have been said of this unknown young lady, who 
had come and sat down beside him upon a bench, 


16 DAISY MILLER 


that she chattered. She was very quiet; she sat in 
a charming, tranquil attitude, but her lips and her 
eyes were constantly moving. She had a soft, slen- 
der, agreeable voice, and her tone was decidedly 
sociable. She gave Winterbourne a history of her 
movements and intentions, and those of her mother 
and brother, in Europe, and enumerated, in par- 
ticular, the various hotels at which they had stopped. 
“That English lady in the cars,’’ she said—‘Miss 
Featherstone—asked me if we didn’t all live in 
hotels in America. I told her I had never been in 
so many hotels in my life as since I came to Europe. 
I have never seen so many—it’s nothing but hotels.” 
But Miss Miller did not make this remark with a . 
querulous accent; she appeared to be in the best 
humor with everything. She declared that the ho- 
tels were very good, when once you got used to 
their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet. 
She was not disappointed—not a bit. Perhaps it 
was because she had heard so much about it before. 
She had ever so many intimate friends that had 
been there ever so many times. And then she had 
had ever so many dresses and things from Paris. 
Whenever she put on a Paris dress she felt as if she 
were in Europe. 

“Tt was a kind of a wishing-cap,” said Winter- 
bourne. 

“Yes,” said Miss Miller, without examining this 
analogy ; “it always made me wish I was here. But 


DAISY MILLER 





I needn’t have done that for dresses. I am 
they send all the pretty ones to America; you, se 
the most frightful things here. The only thing I 
don’t like,’ she proceeded, “is the society. There 
isn’t any society; or, if there is, I don’t know where 
it keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is some 
society somewhere, but I haven’t seen anything of 
it. I’m very fond of society, and I have always had 
a great deal of it. I don’t mean only in Schenec- 
tady, but in New York. I used to go to New York 
every winter. In New York I had lots of society. 
Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me; and 
three of them were by gentlemen,’ added Daisy 
Miller. “I have more friends in New York than in 
Schenectady—more gentleman friends; and more 
young lady friends, too,” she resumed in a moment. 
She paused again for an instant; she was looking 
at Winterbourne with all her prettiness in her lively 
eyes, and in her light, slightly monotonous smile. “I 
have always had,” she said, “a great deal of gentle- 
men’s society.” 

Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and 
decidedly charmed. He had never yet heard a 
young girl express herself in just this fashion— 
never, at least, save in cases where to say such 
things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a 
certain laxity of deportment. And yet was he to 
accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential 
inconduite, as they said at Geneva? He felt that he 






DAISY /MICERN 






lived at Geneva so long that he had lost a good. 
deal; he had become dishabituated to the American | 
tone. Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough 
to appreciate things had he encountered a young 
American girl of so pronounced a type as this. Cer- 
tainly she was very charming, but how deucedly 
sociable! Was she simply a pretty girl from New 
York State? were they all like that, the pretty girls 
who had a good deal of gentlemen’s society? Or 
was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscru- 
pulous young person? Winterbourne had lost his 
instinct in this matter, and his reason could not 
help him. Miss Daisy Miller looked extremel: 
innocent. Some people had told him that, after all 


~~ American girls were exceedingly innocent; and oth 


ers had told him that, after all, they were not. HH: 
was inclined to think Miss Daisy Miller was a flir 
—a pretty American flirt. He had never, as yet 
had any relations with young ladies of this category. 
He had known, here in Europe, two or three women 
—persons older than Miss Daisy Miller, and pro- 
vided, for respectability’s sake, with husbands— 
who were great coquettes—dangerous, terrible 
women, with whom one’s relations were liable to 
take a serious turn. But this young girl was not a 
coquette in that sense; she was very unsophisticated ; 
she was only a pretty American flirt. Winter- 
bourne was almost grateful for having found the 
formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He 


ALS Y? MiLB 19 


leaned back in his seat; he remarked to himself that 
she had the most charming nose he had ever seen; 
he wondered what were the regular conditions and 
limitations of one’s intercourse with a pretty Ameri- 
can flirt. It presently became apparent that he was 
on the way to learn. 

“Have you been to that old castle?” asked the 
young girl, pointing with her parasol to the far- 
gleaming walls of the Chateau de Chillon. 

“Yes, formerly, more than once,” said Winter- 
bourne. “You too, I suppose, have seen it?” 

“No; we haven’t been there. I want to go there 
, dreadfully. Of course I mean to go there. I 
_wouldn’t go away from here without having seen 
that old castle.” 

; it’s a very pretty excursion,” said Winter- 
. bourne, “and very easy to make. You can drive 
- or go by the little steamer.” 

“You can go in the cars,” said Miss Miller. 

“Yes; you can go in the cars,’’’ Winterbourne 
assented. 

“Our courier says they take you right up to the | 
castle,” the young girl continued. “We were going 
last week; but my mother gave out. She suffers 
dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldn’t 
go. Randolph wouldn’t go, either; he says he doesn't 
think much of old castles. But I guess we'll go this 
week, if we can get Randolph.” 


20 DAISY MILLER 


“Your brother is not interested in ancient monu- 
ments?” Winterbourne inquired, smiling. 

“He says he don’t care much about old castles. 
He’s only nine. He wants to stay at the hotel. 
Mother’s afraid to leave him alone, and the courier 
won't stay with him; so we haven’t been to many 
places. But it will be too bad if we don’t go up 
there.” And Miss Miller pointed again at the 
Chateau de Chillon. 

“T should think it might be arranged,” said Win- 
terbourne. ‘“Couldn’t you get some one to stay for 
the afternoon with Randolph?” 

Miss Miller looked at him a moment, and then 
very placidly, “I wish you would stay with him!” 
she said. 

Winterbourne hesitated a moment. “I should 
much rather go to Chillon with you.” 

“With me?” asked the young girl, with the same 
placidity. 

She didn’t rise, blushing, as a young girl at 
Geneva would have done; and yet Winterbourne, 
_ conscious that he had been very bold, thought it pos- 
sible that she was offended. ‘With your mother,” 
he answered, very respectfully. 

But it seemed that both his audacity and his re- 
spect were lost upon Miss Daisy Miiler. “I guess 
my mother won’t go, after all,’ she said. “She 
don’t like to ride round in the afternoon. But did 


& 


DAISY MILLER 21 


you really mean what you said just now, that you 
would like to go up there?’ 

“Most earnestly,” Winterbourne declared. 

“Then we may arrange it. If mother will stay 
with Randolph, I guess Eugenio will.” 

“Eugenio?” the young man inquired. 

“Eugenio’s our courier. He doesn’t like to stay 
with Randolph; he’s the most fastidious man I ever 
saw. But he’s a splendid courier. I guess he’ll stay 
at home with Randolph if mother does, and then we 
cai go to the castle.” 

Winterbourne reflected for an instant as lucidly 
as possible—“we” could only mean Miss Daisy 
Miller and himself. This programme seemed almost 
too agreeable for credence; he felt as if he ought 
to kiss the young lady’s hand. Possibly he would 
have done so, and quite spoiled the project; but at 
this moment another person, presumably Eugenio, 
appeared. A tall, handsome man, with superb 
whiskers, wearing a velvet morning-coat and a bril- 
liant watch-chain, approached Miss Miller, looking 
sharply at her companion. “Oh, Eugenio!” said 
Miss Miller, with the friendliest accent. 

Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from head 
to foot; he now bowed gravely to the young lady. 
“T have the honor to inform mademoiselle that 
luncheon is upon the table.” . 

Miss Miller slowly rose. “See here, Eugenio 


1»? 


22 DATS Yo MILER 


she said; “I’m going to that old castle, anyway.” 

“To the Chateau de Chillon, mademoiselle?”’ the 
courier inquired. ‘Mademoiselle has made arrange- 
ments?” he added, in a tone which struck Winter- 
bourne as very impertinent. 

Eugenio’s tone apparently threw, even to Miss 
Miller’s own apprehension, a slightly ironical light 
upon the young girl’s situation. She turned to Win- 
terbourne, blushing a little—a very little. “You 
won't back out?” she said. 

“T shall not be happy till we go!” he protested. 

“And you are staying in this hotel?’ she went on. 
“And you are really an American?” 

The courier stood looking at Winterbourne of- 
fensively. The young man, at least, thought his 
manner of looking an offence to Miss Miller; it 
conveyed an imputation that she “picked up” ac- 
quaintances. “I shall have the honor of presenting 
_ to you a person who will tell you all about me,” he 
* said, smiling, and referring to his aunt. 

“Oh, well, we'll go some day,” said Miss Miller. 
And she gave him a smile and turned away. She 
put up her parasol and walked back to the inn beside 
Eugenio. Winterbourne stood looking after her; 
and as she moved away, drawing her muslin furbe- 
lows over the gravel, said to himself that she had 
the tournure of a princess. 

He had, however, engaged to do more than proved 
feasible, in promising to present his aunt, Mrs. Cos- 


DAISY MILLER 23 


tello, to Miss Daisy Miller. As soon as the former 
lady had got better of her headache he waited upon 
her in her apartment; and, after the proper inquiries 
in regard to her health, he asked her if she had 
observed in the hotel an American family—a 
mamma, a daughter, and a little boy. 

“And a courier?” said Mrs. Costello. “Oh yes, 
I have observed them. Seen them—heard them— 
and kept out of their way.’ Mrs. Costello was a 
widow with a fortune; a person of much distinction, 
who frequently intimated, that, if she were not so 
dreadfully liable to sick-headaches, she would prob- 
ably have left a deeper impress upon her time. She 
had a long, pale face, a high nose, and a great deal 
of very striking white hair, which she wore in large 
puffs and rouleaux over the top of her head. She 
had two sons married in New York, and another 
who was now in Europe. This young man was 
amusing himself at Hombourg; and, though he was 
on his travels, was rarely perceived to visit any par- 
ticular city at the moment selected by his mother 
for her own appearance there. Her nephew, who 
had come up to Vevey expressly to see her, was 
therefore more attentive than those who, as she said, 
were nearer to her. He had imbibed at Geneva the 
idea that one must always be attentive to one’s aunt. 
Mrs. Costello had not seen him for many years, and 
she was greatly pleased with him, manifesting her 
approbation by initiating him into many of the 


24 DAISY MILLER 


secrets of that social sway which, as she gave him 
to understand, she exerted in the American capital. 
She admitted that she was very exclusive; but, if 
he were acquainted with New York, he would see 
that one had to be. And her picture of the minutely 
hierarchical constitution of the society of that city, 
which she presented to him in many different lights, 
was, to Winterbourne’s imagination, almost oppres- 
sively striking. 

He immediately perceived, from her tone, that 
Miss Daisy Miller’s place in the social scale was 
low. “I am afraid you don’t approve of them,” he 
said. : 

“They are very common,” Mrs. Costello declared. 
“They are the sort of Americans that one does one’s 
duty by not—not accepting.” 

“Ah, you don’t accept them?” said the young man. 

“T can’t, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, 
but I can’t.” 

“The young girl is ,very pretty,’ said Winter- 
bourne, in a moment. | 

“Of course she’s pretty. But she is very com- 
mon.” 

“T see what you mean, of course,” said Winter- 
bourne, after another pause. 

“She has that charming look that they all have,” 
his aunt resumed. “I can’t think where they pick 
it up; and she dresses in perfection—no, you don’t 


DAISY MILLER 25 


know how well she dresses. I can’t think where 
they get their taste.” 

“But, my Hes aunt, she is not, after all, a Ces 
manche savage.” 

“She is a young lady,” said Mrs. Costello, “who 
has an intimacy with her mamma’s courier.” 

“An intimacy with the courier?” the young man 
demanded. 

“Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the 
courier like a familiar friend—like a gentleman. I 
shouldn’t wonder if he dines with them. Very 
likely they have never seen a man with such good 
manners, such fine clothes, so like a gentleman. He 
probably corresponds to the young lady’s idea ofa 
count. He sits with them in the garden in the 
evening. I think he smokes.” 

Winterbourne listened with interest to these dis- 
closures; they helped him to make up his mind 
about Miss Daisy. Evidently she was rather wild. 

“Well,” he said, “I am not a courier, and yet she 
was very charming to me.” 

“You had better have said at first,’ said Mrs. 
Costello, with dignity, “that you had made her 
acquaintance.” 

“We simply met in the garden, and we talked a 
Bitz 

“Tout bonnement! And pray what did you say?” 

“T said I should take the liberty of introducing 
her to my admirable aunt.” 


26 DAISY MIELER 


“Tt am much obliged to you.” 

“It was to guarantee my respectability,” said 
Winterbourne. 

“And pray who is to guarantee hers?” 

“Ah, you are cruel,” said the young man. ‘“She’s 
a very nice young girl.” 

“You don’t say that as if you believed it,” Mrs. 
Costello observed. 

“She is completely uncultivated,” Winterbourne 
went on. “But she is wonderfully pretty, and, in 
short, she is very nice. To prove that I believe it, 
I am going to take her to the Chateau de Chillon.” 

“You two are going off there together? I should 
say it proved just the contrary. How long had you 
known her, may I ask, when this interesting project 
was formed? You haven’t been twenty-four hours 
in the house.” 

“T had known her half an hour!’ said Winter- 
bourne, smiling. | 

“Dear me!”’ cried Mrs. Costello. ‘“‘What a dread- 
ful girl!” 

Her nephew was silent for some moments.> “You 
really think, then,” he began, earnestly, and with a 
desire for trustworthy information—‘“you really 
think that ” But he paused again. 

“Think what, sir?” said his aunt. 

“That she is the sort of young lady who expects 
a man, sooner or later, to carry her off?” 

“T haven't the least idea,what such young ladies 





DAISY MILLER 27 


expect a man to do. But I really think that you 
had better not meddle with little American girls that 
are uncultivated, as you call them. You have lived 
too long out of the country. You will be sure to 
make some great mistake. You are too innocent.” 

“My dear aunt, I am not so innocent,’ said 
Winterbourne, smiling and curling his mustache. 

“You are too guilty, then!” 

Winterbourne continued to curl his mustache, 
meditatively. “You won’t let the poor girl know 
you, then?” he asked at last. 

“Ts it literally true that she is going to the Cha- 
teau de Chillon with you?” 

“T think that she fully intends it.” 

“Then, my dear Frederick,’ said Mrs. Costello, 
“T must decline the honor of her acquaintance. Iam 
an old woman, but I am not too old, thank Heaven, 
to be shocked!” 

“But don’t they all do these things—the young 
* girls in America?” Winterbourne inquired. 

Mrs. Costello stared a moment. “TI should like 
to see my granddaughters do them!” she declared, 
grimly. 

This seemed to throw some light upon the matter, 
for Winterbourne remembered to have heard that 
his pretty cousins in New York were “tremendous 
flirts.” If, therefore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded 
the liberal margin allowed to these young ladies, it 
was probable that anything might be expected of her. 


Die DAISY MILLER 


Winterbourne was impatient to see her again, and he 
was vexed with himself that, by instinct, he should 
not appreciate her justly. 

Though he was impatient to see her, he hardly 
knew what he should say to her about his aunt’s 
refusal to become acquainted with her; but he dis- 
covered, promptly enough, that with Miss Daisy 
Miller there was no great need of walking on tiptoe. 
He found her that evening in the garden, wandering 
about in the warm starlight like an indolent sylph, 
and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever 
beheld. It was ten o’clock. He had dined with 
his aunt, had been sitting with her since dinner, and 
had just taken leave of her till the morrow. Miss 
Daisy Miller seemed very glad to see him; she de- 
clared it was the longest evening she had ever 
passed. 

“Have you been all alone?” he asked. 

“T have been walking round with mother. But 
mother gets tired walking round,” she answered. 

“Has she gone to bed?” 

“No; she doesn’t like to go to bed,” said the 
young girl. “She doesn’t sleep—not three hours. — 
She says she doesn’t know how she lives. She’s 
dreadfully nervous. I guess she sleeps more than - 
‘she thinks. She’s gone somewhere after Randolph; 
she wants to try to get him to go to bed. He doesn’t 
like to go to bed.” | 


DAISY MILLER 29 


“Let us hope she will persuade him,” observed 
Winterbourne. 

“She will talk to him all she can; but he doesn’t 
like her to talk to him,” said Miss Daisy, opening 
her fan. “She’s going to try to get Eugenio to talk 
tohim. But he isn’t afraid of Eugenio. Eugenio’s a 
splendid courier, but he can’t make much impression 
on Randolph! I don’t believe he’ll go to bed before 
eleven.” It appeared that Randolph’s vigil was in 
fact triumphantly prolonged, for Winterbourne 
strolled about with the young girl for some time 
without meeting her mother. “I have been look- 
ing round for that lady you want to introduce me 
to,” his companion resumed. ‘“She’s your aunt.” 
Then, on Winterbourne’s admitting the fact, and 
expressing some curiosity as to how she had learned 
it, she said she had heard all about Mrs. Costello 
from the chambermaid. She was very quiet, and 
very comme il faut; she wore white puffs; she spoke 
to no one, and she never dined at the table dhéte. 
Every two days she had a headache. “TI think that’s 
a lovely description, headache and all!” said Miss 
Daisy, chattering along in her thin, gay voice. “I 
‘want to know her ever so much. I know just what 
your aunt would be; I know I should like her. She 
would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be ex- 
clusive; 'm dying to be exclusive myself. Well, 
we are exclusive, mother and I. We don’t speak to 


30 DAISY MILLER 


every one—or they don’t speak to us. I suppose it’s 
about the same thing. Anyway, I shall be ever so 
glad to know your aunt.” 

Winterbourne was embarrassed. “She would be 
most happy,” he said; “but I am afraid those head- — 
aches will interfere.” 

The young girl looked at him through the dusk. 
“But I suppose she doesn’t have a headache every 
day,” she said, sympathetically. 

Winterbourne was silent a moment. “She tells 
me she does,” he answered at last, not knowing what 
to say. 

Miss Daisy Miller stopped, and stood looking at 
him. Her prettiness was still visible in the dark- 
ness ; she was opening and closing her enormous fan. 
“She doesn’t want to know me!” she said, suddenly. 
“Why don’t you say so? You needn’t be afraid. 
Pm not afraid!” And she gave a little laugh. 

Winterbourne fancied there was a tremor in her 
voice; he was touched, shocked, mortified by it. 
“My dear young lady,” he protested, “she knows 
no one. It’s her wretched health.” E 

The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing 
still. “You needn’t be afraid,” she repeated. “‘Why 
should she want to know me?” ‘Then she paused 
again; she was close to the parapet of the garden, 
and in front of her was the starlit lake. There was 
a vague sheen upon its surface, and in the distance 


DAISY MILLER 31 


were dimly-seen mountain forms. Daisy Miller 
looked out upon the mysterious prospect, and then 
she gave another little laugh. “Gracious! she is 
exclusive!” she said. Winterbourne wondered 
whether she was seriously wounded, and for a mo- 
ment almost wished that her sense of injury might 
be such as to make it becoming in him to attempt to 
reassure and comfort her. He had a pleasant sense 
that she would be very approachable for consola- 
tory purposes. He felt then, for the instant, quite 
ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversationally; to ad- 
mit that she was a proud, rude woman, and to de- 
clare that they needn’t mind her. But before he 
had time to commit himself to this perilous mixture 
of gallantry and impiety, the young lady, resuming 
her walk, gave an exclamation in quite another tone. 
“Well, here’s mother! I guess she hasn’t got Ran- 
dolph to go to bed.” The figure of a lady ap- 
peared, at a distance, very indistinct in the darkness, 
and advancing with a slow and wavering movement. 
Suddenly it seemed to pause. 

“Are you sure it is your mother? Can you dis- 
tinguish her in this thick dusk?’ Winterbourne 
asked. 

“Well!” cried Miss Daisy Miller, with a laugh; 
“T guess I know my own mother. And when she has 
got on my shawl, too! She is always wearing my 
things.” 


32 DAISY MILLER 


The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered 
vaguely about the spot at which she had checked 
her steps. 

“T am afraid your mother doesn’t see you,” said 
Winterbourne. “Or perhaps,’ he added, thinking, 
with Miss Miller, the joke permissible—“perhaps 
she feels guilty about your shawl.” 

“Oh, it’s a fearful old thing!” the young girl 
replied, serenely. “I told her she could wear it. She 
won’t come here, because she sees you.” 

“Ah, then,” said Winterbourne, “I had better leave 
you.” 

“Oh no; come on!” urged Miss Daisy Miller. 

“T’m afraid your mother doesn’t approve of my 
walking with you.” 

Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. “It isn’t 
for me; it’s for you—that is, it’s for her. Well, 
I don’t know who it’s for! But mother doesn’t like 
any of my gentlemen friends. She’s right down 
timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a 
gentleman. But I do introduce them—almost 
always. If I didn’t introduce my gentlemen friends 
to mother,” the young girl added, in her little soft, 
flat monotone, “I shouldn’t think it was natural.” 

“To introduce me,” said Winterbourne, “you 
must know my name.” And he proceeded to pro- 
nounce it to her. 

“Oh dear, I can’t say all that!” said his com- 
panion, with a laugh. But by this time they had 


J 


DAISY MILLER 33 


come up to Mrs. Miller, who, a> they drew near, 
walked to the parapet of the garde.: and leaned upon 
it, looking intently at the lake, and turning her back 
to them. ‘Mother!’ said the young girl, in a tone 
of decision. Upon this the elder lady turned round. 
“Mr. Winterbourne,” said Miss Daisy Miller, intro- 
ducing the young man very frankly and prettily. 
“Common,” she was, as Mrs. Costello had pro- 
nounced her; yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne 
that, with her commonness, she had a singularly 
delicate grace. 

Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with 
a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large 
forehead, decorated with a certain amount of thin, 
much-frizzled hair. Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller 
was dressed with extreme elegance; she had enor- 
mous diamonds in her ears. So far as Winter- 
bourne could observe, she gave him no greeting— 
she certainly was not looking at him. Daisy was 
near her, pulling her shawl straight. ‘What are you 
doing, poking round here?” this young lady inquired, 
but by no means with that harshness of accent which 
her choice of words may imply. 

“T don’t know,” said her mother, turning towards 
the lake again. 

“T shouldn’t think you’d want that shawl!” Daisy 
exclaimed. 

“Well, I do!’ her mother answered, with a little 
laugh. 


34 DAISY MILLER 


“Did you get Xandolph to go to bed?” asked the 
young girl. 

“No; I couldn’t induce him,” said Mrs. Miller, 
very gently. “He wants to talk to the waiter. He 
likes to talk to that waiter.” 

“T was telling Mr. Winterbourne,” the young girl 
went on; and to the young man’s ear her tone might 
have indicated that she had been uttering his name 
etl hern lite, 

“Oh yes! said Winterbourne; “I have the pleas- 
ure of knowing your son.” 

Randolph’s mamma was silent; she turned her 
attention to the lake. But at last she spoke. “Well, 
I don’t see how he lives!” 

“Anyhow, it isn’t so bad as it was at Dover,” said 
Daisy Miller. 

“And what occurred at Dover?’ Winterbourne 
asked. 

« “He wouldn’t go to bed at all. I guess he sat up 
all night in the public parlor. He wasn’t in bed 
at twelve o'clock; I know that.” 

“Tt was half-past twelve,” declared Mrs. Miller, 
with mild emphasis. 

“Does he sleep much during the day?’ Winter- 
bourne demanded. | 

“T guess he doesn’t sleep much,” Daisy rejoined. 

“T wish he would!” said her mother. “It seems 
as if he couldn’t.” ; 

“T think he’s real tiresome,” Daisy pursued. 


DAISY MILLER 35 


Then for some moments there was silence. ‘“‘Well, 
Daisy Miller,” said the elder lady, presently, “I 
shouldn’t think you’d want to talk against your own 
brother !” 

“Well, he is tiresome, mother,’ 
without the asperity of a retort. 

“FHe’s only nine,” urged Mrs. Miller. 

“Well, he wouldn’t go to that castle,” said the 
young girl. “I’m going there with Mr. Winter- 
bourne.” 

To this announcement, very placidly made, Daisy’s 
mamma offered no response. Winterbourne took for 
granted that she deeply disapproved of the projected 
excursion; but he said to himself that she was a 
simple, easily-managed person, and that a few defer- 
ential protestations would take the edge from her 
displeasure. “Yes,” he began; “your daughter has 
kindly allowed me the honor of being her guide.” 

Mrs. Miller’s wandering eyes attached themselves, 
with a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, how- 
ever, strolled a few steps farther, gently humming 
to herself. “I presume you will go in the cars,” 
said her mother. 

“Yes, or in the boat,” said Winterbourne. 

“Well, of course, I don’t know,” Mrs. Miller 
rejoined. “I have never been to that castle.” 

“Tt is a pity you shouldn’t go,” said Winter- 
bourne, beginning to feel reassured as to her oppo- 
sition. And yet he was quite prepared to find that, 


, 


said Daisy, quite 


36 DAISY: -MILEER 


as a matter of course, she meant to accompany her 
daughter. 

“We've been thinking ever so much about going,” 
she pursued; “but it seems as if we couldn’t. Of 
course Daisy, she wants to go round. But there’s a 
lady here—I don’t know her name—she says she 
shouldn’t think we’d want to go to see castles here; 
she should think we’d want to wait till we got to 
Italy. It seems as if there would be so many there,” 
continued Mrs. Miller, with an air of increasing con- 
fidence. “Of course we only want to see the prin-- 
cipal ones. We visited several in England,’ she 
presently added. 

“Ah, yes! in England there are beautiful castles,” 
said Winterbourne. “But Chillon, here, is very well 
worth seeing.”’ 

“Well, if Daisy feels up to it > said Mrs. 
Miller, in a tone impregnated with a sense of the 
magnitude of the enterprise. “It seems as if there 
was nothing she wouldn’t undertake.” 

“Oh, I think she’ll enjoy it!’ Winterbourne de- 
clared. And he desired more and more to make it 
a certainty that he was to have the privilege of a 
téte-a-téte with the young lady, who was still stroll- 
ing along in front of them, softly vocalizing. “You 
are not disposed, madam,” he inquired, “to under- 
take it yourself?” 

Daisy’s mother looked at him an instant askance, 
and then walked forward in silence. Then—“I 





DAISY) MILLER By 


guess she had better go alone,” she said, simply. 
Winterbourne observed to himself that this was a 
very different type of maternity from that of the 
vigilant matrons who massed themselves in the fore- 
front of social intercourse in the dark old city at 
the other end of the lake. But his meditations were 
interrupted by hearing his name very distinctly pro- 
nounced by Mrs. Miller’s unprotected daughter. 

“Mr. Winterbourne!” murmured Daisy. 

“Mademoiselle!” said the young man. 

“Don’t you want to take me out in a boat?” 

“At present!’ he asked. | 

“Of course!” said Daisy. 

“Well, Annie Miller!’ exclaimed her mother. 

“T beg you, madam, to let her go,” said Winter- 
bourne, ardently; for he had never yet enjoyed the 
sensation of guiding through the summer starlight 
a skiff freighted with a fresh and beautiful young 
girl. 

“T shouldn’t think she’d want to,” said her mother. 
“T should think she’d rather go indoors.” 

“T’m sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me,” 
Daisy declared. ‘“He’s so awfully devoted!” 

“T will row you over to Chillon in the starlight.” 

“T don’t believe it!’ said Daisy. 

“Well!” ejaculated the elder lady again. 

“You haven’t spoken to me for half an hour,” her 
daughter went on. 


38 DATS Yo earls tes 


“T have been having some very pleasant conver- 
sation with your mother,” said Winterbourne. 

“Well, I want you to take me out in a boat!” 
Daisy repeated. They had all stopped, and she had 
turned round and was looking at Winterbourne. 
Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes 
were gleaming, she was swinging her great fan 
about. “No; it’s impossible to be prettier than that,” 
thought Winterbourne. 

“There are half a dozen boats moored at that 
landing-place,” he said, pointing to certain steps 
which descended from the garden to the lake. “If 
you will do me the honor to accept my arm, we will 
go and select one of them.” 

Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her 
head and gave a little light laugh. “I like a gentle- 
man to be formal!” she declared. 

“T assure you it’s a formal offer.” 

“T was bound I would make you say something,” 
Daisy went on. 

“You see, it’s not very difficult,” said Winter- 
bourne. “But I am afraid you are chaffing me.” 

“T think not, sir,” remarked Mrs. Miller, very 
gently. 

“Do, then, let me give you a row,” he said to the 
young girl. 

“Tt’s quite lovely, the way you say that!” cried 
Daisy. 

“Tt will be still more lovely to do it.” 


: 


DAISY MILLER 39 


“Yes, it would be lovely!” said Daisy. But she 
made no movement to accompany him; she only 
stood there laughing. 

“T should think you had better find out what time 
it is,’ interposed her mother. 

“It is eleven o’clock, madam,” said a voice, with 
a foreign accent, out of the neighboring darkness; 
and Winterbourne, turning, perceived the florid 
personage who was in attendance upon the two 
ladies. He had apparently just approached. 

“Oh, Eugenio,” said Daisy, “I am going out in a 
boat!” 

Eugenio bowed. “At eleven o’clock, made- 
moiselle ?” 

“T am going with Mr. Winterbourne—this very 
minute.” 

“Do tell her she can’t,” said Mrs. Miller to the 
courier. 

“T think you had better not go out in a boat, 
mademoiselle,” Eugenio declared. 

Winterbourne wished to Heaven this pretty girl 
were not so familiar with her courier; but he said 
nothing. 

“T suppose you don’t think it’s proper!’ Daisy 
exclaimed. “Eugenio doesn’t think anything’s 
proper.” } 

“T am at your service,’ said Winterbourne. 

“Does mademoiselle propose to go alone?” asked 
Eugenio of Mrs. Miller. 


d 


1? 


Tommie DAISY MILLER 


“Oh, no; with this gentleman!” answered Daisy’s 
mamma. 

The courier looked for a moment at Winter- 
bourne—the latter thought he was smiling—and 
then, solemnly, with a bow, “As mademoiselle 
pleases!’’ he said. 

“Oh, Lhoped you would make a fuss!” said Daisy. 
Tel don’t care to go now.’ 

aa myself shall make a fuss_ if you don’t go,” said 
Winterbourne. 

“That’s all | want—a little fuss!” _ And the young 
girl began to laugh again 

“Mr. Randolph has gone to bed!” the courier an- 
nounced, frigidly. 

“Oh, Daisy; now we can go!” said Mrs. Miller. 

Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking 
at him, Si SS and fanning herself. ‘“Good-night,” 
she said; “I hope you are disappointed, or disgusted, 
or Setieehinee? 

He looked at her, taking the hand she asia him. 
“T am puzzled,’ he answered. 

“Well, I hope it won’t keep you awake!” she said, 
very smartly; and, under the escort of the privi- 
leged Eugenio, the two ladies passed towards the 
house. 

Winterbourne stood looking after them; he was 
indeed puzzled. He lingered beside the lake for a 
quarter of an hour, turning over the mystery of the 
young girl’s sudden familiarities and caprices. But 








DAISY MILLER 






the only very definite conclusion he came to 
that he should enjoy deucedly “going off” with he 
somewhere. 
Two days afterwards he went off with her to 
the Castle of Chillon. He waited for her in the 
large hall of the hotel, where the couriers, the serv- 
ants, the foreign tourists, were lounging about and 
staring. It was not the place he should have chosen, 
but she had appointed it. She came tripping down- 
stairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her 
folded parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in 
the perfection of a soberly elegant travelling cos- 
tume. Winterbourne was a man of imagination and, 
as our ancestors used to say, sensibility ; as he looked 
at her dress and—on the great staircase—her little 
rapid, confiding step, he felt as if there were some- 
thing romantic going forward. He could have be- 
lieved he was going to elope with her. He passed 
out with her among all the idle people that were 
assembled there; they were all looking at her very 
hard; she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined 
him. Winterbourne’s preference had been that they 
should be conveyed to Chillon in a carriage; but she 
expressed a lively wish to go in the little steamer; 
she declared that she had a passion for steamboats. 
There was always such a lovely breeze upon the 
water, and you saw such lots of people. The sail 
was not long, but Winterbourne’s companion found 
time to say a great many things. To the young 


DATSY MIELE 





imself their little excursion was so much of 
1 escapade—an adventure—that, even allowing 
for her habitual sense of freedom, he had some ex- 
pectation of seeing her regard it in the same way. 
But it must be confessed that, in this particular, he 
was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely ani- 
mated, she was in charming spirits; but she was ap- 
parently not at all excited; she was not fluttered; 
she avoided neither his eyes nor those of any one 
else; she blushed neither when she looked at him 
nor when she felt that people were looking at her. 
People continued to look at her a great deal, and 
Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his pretty 
companion’s distinguished air. He had been a little 
afraid that she would talk loud, laugh overmuch, and 
even, perhaps, desire to move about the boat a good 
deal. But he quite forgot his fears; he sat smiling, 
with his eyes upon her face, while, without moving 
from her place, she delivered herself of a great 
number of original reflections. It was the most 
charming garrulity he had ever heard. He had as- 
sented to the idea that she was “common”; but was 
she so, after all, or was he simply getting used to 
her commonness? Her conversation was chiefly of 
what metaphysicians term the objective cast; but 
every now and then it took a subjective turn. 

“What on earth are you so grave about?” she 
suddenly demanded, fixing her agreeable eyes upon 
Winterbourne’s. 





| mured Winterbourne. 








DAISY MILLER 







“Am I grave?” he asked. “I had an idea 
| grinning from ear to ear.” 

“You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. 
If that’s a grin, your ears are very near together.” 

“Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the 
| deck?” 

“Pray do, and I’ll carry round your hat. It will 
pay the expenses of our journey.” 

“T never was better pleased in my life,’ mur- 
She looked at him a moment, and then burst into 
a little laugh. “I like to make you say those things! 
| You’re a queer mixture!” 

_ In the castle, after they had landed, the sub- 
_ jective element decidedly prevailed. Daisy tripped 
about the vaulted chambers, rustled her skirts in the 
corkscrew staircases, flirted back with a pretty little 
| ery and a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, 
and turned a singularly well-shaped ear to every- 
| thing that Winterbourne told her about the place. 
- But he saw that she cared very little for feudal an- 
tiquities, and that the dusky traditions of Chillon 
made but a slight impression upon her. They had 
the good-fortune to have been able to walk without 
other companionship than that of the custodian ; and 
Winterbourne arranged with this functionary that 
they should not be hurried—that they should linger 
and pause wherever they chose. The custodian in- 
terpreted the bargain generously—Winterbourne, on 








DAISY MILLER 


re, had been generous—and ended by leaving 
m1 quite to themselves. Miss Miller’s observations 
were not remarkable for logical consistency; for 
anything she wanted to say she was sure to find a 
pretext. She found a great many pretexts in the 
rug,ed embrasures of Chillon for asking Winter- 
bourne sudden questions about himself—his family, 
his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his inten- 
tions—and for supplying information upon corre- 
sponding points in her own personality. Of her own 
tastes, habits, and intentions Miss Miller was pre- 
pared to give the most definite, and, indeed, the most 
favorable account. 

“Well, I hope you know enough!” she said to her 
companion, after he had told her the history of the 
unhappy Bonnivard. “TI never saw a man who knew 
somuch!’ The history of Bonnivard had evidently, 
as they say, gone into one ear and out of the other. 
But Daisy went on to say that she wished Winter- 
bourne would travel with them, and “go round” 
with them; they might know something, in that case. 
“Don’t you want to come and teach Randolph?” she 
asked. Winterbourne said that nothing could pos- 
sibly please him so much, but that he had unfortu- 
nately other occupations. “Other occupations? I 
don’t believe it!” said Miss Daisy. ‘What do you 
mean? You are not in business.” The young man 
admitted that he was not in business; but he had en- 
gagements which, even within a day or two, would 


DAISY MILLER 45 


force him to go back to Geneva. ‘Oh, bother!” she 
said; “I don’t believe it!” and she began to talk 
about something else. But a few moments later, 
when he was pointing out to her the pretty design 
of an antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly, 
“You don’t mean to say you are going back to Ge- 
neva?” 

“Tt is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return 
to-morrow.” , 

“Well, Mr. Winterbourne,” said Daisy, “I think 
you're horrid!” 

“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things!’ said Win- 
terbourne—“‘just at the last!” 

pe hbesast)<actieduthe.nvoung girl ilo callat the 
first. I have half a mind to leave you here and go 
straight back to the hotel alone.’’ And for the next 
ten minutes she did nothing but call him horrid. 
Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered ; no young 
lady had as yet done him the honor to be so agitated 
by the announcement of his movements. His com- 
panion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the 
curiosities of Chillon or the beauties of the lake; she 
opened fire upon the mysterious charmer of Geneva, 
whom she appeared to have instantly taken for 
granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did 
Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer 
in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the existence 
of such a person, was quite unable to discover; and 
he was divided between amazement at the rapidity 


46 DAISY MILLER 


of her induction and amusement at the frankness of 
her persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an 
extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. 
“Does she never allow you more than three days at 
a time?” asked Daisy, ironically. ‘“Doesn’t she give 
you a vacation in summer? There is no one so hard 
worked but they can get leave to go off somewhere 
at this season. I suppose, if you stay another day, 
she’ll come after you in the boat. Do wait over till 
Friday, and I will go down to the landing to see her 
arrive!” Winterbourne began to think he had been 
wrong to feel disappointed in the temper in which 
the young lady had embarked. If he had missed the 
personal accent, the personal accent was now making 
its appearance. It sounded very distinctly, at last, 
in her telling him she would stop “teasing” him if he 
would promise her solemnly to come down to Rome 
in the winter. 

“That’s not a difficult promise to make,” said 
Winterbourne. “My aunt has taken an apartment in 
Rome for the winter, and has already asked me to 
come and see her.” ; 

“T don’t want you to come for your aunt,” said 
Daisy; “I want you to come for me.” And this 
was the only allusion that the young man was ever 
to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman. He 
declared that, at any rate, he would certainly come. 
After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winterbourne 


DAISY MILLER 47 


took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in 
the dusk. The young girl was very quiet. 

In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. 
Costello that he had spent the afternoon at Chillon 
with Miss Daisy Muller. 

“The Americans—of the courier?’ asked this 
lady. 

“Ah, happily,” said Winterbourne, “the courier 
stayed at home.” 

“She went with you all alone?” 

yAllfalone:s 

Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling-bottle. 
“And that,” she exclaimed, “is the young person 
whom you wanted me to know!” 


PART AL 
ROME 


WINTERBOURNE, who-had returned to Geneva the 
day after his excursion to Chillon, went to Rome 
towards the end of January. His aunt had been 
established: there for several weeks, and he had re- 
ceived a couple of letters from her. “Those people 
you were so devoted to last summer at Vevey have 
turned up here, courier and all,” she wrote. “They 
seem to have made several acquaintances, but the 
courier continues to be the most imtime. The young 
lady, however, is also very intimate with some third- 
rate Italians, with whom she rackets about in a way 
that makes much talk. Bring me that pretty novel 
of Cherbuliez’s—Paule Méré—and don’t come later 
than the 23d.” 

In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on 
arriving in Rome, would presently have ascertained 
Mrs. Miller’s address at the American banker’s, and 
have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy. 
“After what happened at Vevey, I think I may cer- 
tainly call upon them,” he said to Mrs. Costello. 


48 


SI 
" with 

“If, after what happens—at Vevey and ever,,’, 
where—you desire to keep up the acquaintance, you 
are very welcome. Of course a man may know every 
one. Men are welcome to the privilege!” 

“Pray what is it that happens—here, for in- 
stance?’ Winterbourne demanded. 

“The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. 
As to what happens further, you must apply else- 
where for information. She has picked up half a 
dozen of the regular Roman fortune-hunters, and 
she takes them about to people’s houses. When she 
comes to a party she brings with her a gentleman 
with a good deal of manner and a wonderful mus- 
tache.” 

“‘And where is the mother ?” 

“T haven’t the least idea. They are very dreadful 
people.”’ 

Winterbourne meditated a moment. “They are 
very ignorant—very innocent only. Depend upon 
it they are not bad.” 

“They are hopelessly vulgar,” said Mrs. Costello. 
“Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being 
‘bad’ is a question for the metaphysicians. They are 
bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short 
life that is quite enough.” 

The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by 
half a dozen wonderful mustaches checked Winter- 
bourne’s impulse to go straightway to see her. He 
had, perhaps, not definitely flattered himself that he 


DATS YouLiceER 


DAISY MILLER 


made an ineffaceable impression upon her heart, 
put he was annoyed at hearing of a state of affairs 
so little in harmony with an image that had lately 
flitted in and out of his own meditations; the image 
oi a very pretty girl looking out of an old Roman 
window and asking herself urgently when Mr. Win- 
terbourne would arrive. If, however, he determined 
tc wait a little before reminding Miss Miller of his 
claims to her consideration, he went very soon to 
call upon two or three other friends. One of these 
friends was an American lady who had spent several 
winters at Geneva, where she had placed her children 
at school. She was a very accomplished woman, and 
she lived in the Via Gregoriana. Winterbourne 
found her in a little crimson drawing-room on 
a third floor; the room was filled with south- 
‘ern sunshine. He had not been there ten min- 
utes when the servant came in, announcing “Madame 
Mila!” This announcement was presently followed 
by the entrance of little Randolph Miller, who 
stopped in the middle of the room and stood staring 
at Winterbourne. An instant later his pretty sister 
crossed the threshold; and then, after a considerable 
interval, Mrs. Miller slowly advanced. 

“T know you!” said Randolph. 

“I’m sure you know a great many things,” ex- 
claimed Winterbourne, taking him by the hand. 
“How is your education coming on?” 


DAISY MILLER 51 


Daisy was exchanging greetings very prettily with 
her hostess; but when she heard Winterbourne’s 
voice she quickly turned her head. “Well, I de- 
clare!’’ she said. 

“T told you I should come, you know,’’ Winter- 
bourne rejoined, smiling. 

“Well, I didn’t believe it,” said Miss Daisy. 

“T am much obliged to you,” laughed the young 
“man. 

“You might have come to see me!” said Daisy. 

“I arrived only yesterday.” 

“T don’t believe that!” the young girl declared. 

Winterbourne turned with a protesting smile to 
her mother; but this lady evaded his glance, and, 
seating herself, fixed her eyes upon her son. “We’ve 
got a bigger place than this,” said Randolph. “It’s 
all gold on the walls.” 

Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. “TI told 
you if I were going to bring you, you would say 
something!’ she murmured. 

“T told you!” Randolph exclaimed. “TI tell you, 
sir!’ he added, jocosely, giving Winterbourne a 
thump on the knee. “It is bigger, too!” 

Daisy had entered upon a lively conversation with 
her hostess, and Winterbourne judged it becoming 
to address a few words to her mother. “I hope you 
have been well since we parted at Vevey,” he said. 

Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him—at his 
chin. “Not very well, sir,” she answered. 


U. wr ILL ure 


52 DAISY MILLER 


“She’s got the dyspepsia,” said Randolph. “I’ve 
got it, too.: Father's got it.» Ive got it most!” 

This announcement, instead of embarrassing Mrs. 
Miller, seemed to relieve her. “I suffer from the 
liver,” she said. ‘‘I think it’s this climate; it’s less 
bracing than Schenectady, especially in the winter 
. season. I don’t know whether you know we reside 
at Schenectady. I was saying to Daisy that I cer- 
tainly hadn’t found any one like Dr. Davis, and I~ 
didn’t believe I should. Oh, at Schenectady he 
stands first; they think everything of him. He has 
so much to do, and yet there was nothing he wouldn’t 
do for me. He said he never saw anything like my 
dyspepsia, but he was bound to cure it. I’m sure 
there was nothing he wouldn’t try. He was just 
going to try something new when we came off. Mr. 
Miller wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But 
I wrote to Mr. Miller that it seems as if I couldn’t 
get on without Dr. Davis. At Schenectady he stands 
at the very top; and there’s a great deal of sickness 
there, too. It affects my sleep.” 

Winterbourne had a good deal of pathological 
gossip with Dr. Davis’s patient, during which Daisy 
chattered unremittingly to her own companion. The 
young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased 
with Rome. “Well, I must say I am disappointed,” 
she answered. ‘“‘We had heard so much about it; I 
suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn’t 


DAISY MILLER 53 


help that. We had been led to expect something 
different.” 

“Ah, wait a little, and you will become very fond 
of it,” said Winterbourne. 

“T hate it worse and worse every day!” cried Ran- 
dolph. 

“You are like the infant Hannibal,” said Winter- 
bourne. 

“No, I ain’t!’ Randolph declared, at a venture. 

y Vowrare not, much likeanmeniant; said. ils 
mother. “But we have seen places,’ she resumed, 
“that I should put a long way before Rome.” And 
in reply to Winterbourne’s interrogation, “There’s 
Zurich,” she concluded, “I think Ziirich is lovely; 
and we hadn’t heard half so much about it.” 

“The best place we’ve seen is the City of Rich- 
mond!” said Randolph. 

“He means the ship,” his mother explained. ‘We 
crossed in that ship. Randolph had a good time on 
the City of Richmond.” 

“Tt’s the best place I’ve seen,” the child repeated. 
“Only it was turned the wrong way.” 

“Well, we’ve got to turn the right way some time,” 
said Mrs. Miller, with a little laugh. Wéinterbourne 
expressed the hope that her daughter at least found 
some gratification in Rome, and she declared that 
Daisy was quite carried away. “It’s on account of 
the society—the society’s splendid. She goes‘round 


& 


54 DAISY Oe 


everywhere; she has made a great number of ac- 
quaintances. Of course she goes round more than I 
do. I must say they have been very sociable; they 
have taken her right in. And then she knows a great 
many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks there’s nothing like 
Rome. Of course, it’s a great deal pleasanter for a 
young lady if she knows plenty of gentlemen.” 

By this time Daisy had turned her attention again 
to Winterbourne. “I’ve been telling Mrs. Walker 
how mean you were!” the young girl announced. 

“And what is the evidence you have offered?” 
asked Winterbourne, rather annoyed at Miss Miller’s 
want of appreciation of the zeal of an admirer who 
on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at 
Bologna nor at Florence, simply because of a certain 
sentimental impatience. He remembered that a cyni- 
cal compatriot had once told him that American 
women—the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness 
to the axiom—were at once the most exacting in the 
world and the least endowed with a sense of indebt- 
edness. | 

“Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey,” said 
Daisy. “You wouldn’t do anything. You wouldn’t 
stay there when I asked you.” 

“My dearest young lady,” cried Winterbourne, 
with eloquence, “have I come all the way to Rome 
to encounter your reproaches ?”’ 

“Just hear him say that!” said Daisy to her host- 


bd 






I val he ad MILDER 


ess, giving a twist to a bow on this lady’s dres 
“Did you ever hear anything so quaint! pe 

“So quaint, my dear?” murmured Mrs. Walker, 
in a tone of a partisan of Winterbourne. : 

“Well, I don’t know,” said Daisy, fingerings Mrs. 
Walker’s ribbons. ‘Mrs. Walker, I want to seg 
you something.” 

“Mother-r,” interposed Randolph, with his rough 
ends to his words, “I tell you you’ve got to go. 
Eugenio ’Il raise—something!” 

“T’m not afraid of Eugenio,” said Daisy, with a 
toss of her head. “Look here, Mrs. Walker,” she 
went on, “you know I’m coming to your party.” 

“T am delighted to hear it.” 

“T’ve got a lovely dress!” 

“T am very sure of that.” 

“But I want to ask a favor—permission to bring 
aotriend. 

“T shall be happy to see any of your friends,” said 
Mrs. Walker, turning with a smile to Mrs. Miller. 

“Oh, they are not my friends,” answered Daisy’s 
mamma, smiling shyly, in her own fashion. “I never 
spoke to them.” 

“Tt’s an intimate friend of mine—Mr. Giovanelli,” 
said Daisy, without a tremor in her clear little voice, 
or a shadow on her brilliant little face. 

Mrs. Walker was silent a moment; she gave a 
rapid glance at Winterbourne. “I shall be glad to 
see Mr. Giovanelli,” she then said. 





patsy MILLER 
‘A 


ites saggy Daisy pursued, with the 


prettiest serenity. “He’s a great friend of mine; 
he’s the handsomest man in the world—except Mr. 
Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but 
he wants to know some Americans. He thinks ever 
We much of Americans. He’s tremendously clever. 
He s perfectly lovely!” 

It was settled that this brilliant personage should 
be brought to Mrs. Walker’s party, and then Mrs. 
Miller prepared to take her leave. “I guess we'll 
go back to the hotel,” she said. 

“You may go back to the hotel, mother, but I’m 
going to take a walk,” said Daisy. 

“She’s going to walk with Mr. Giovanelli,’ Ran- 
dolph proclaimed. 

“T am going to the Pincio,” said Daisy, smiling. 

“Alone, my dear—at this hour?’ Mrs. Walker 
asked. The afternoon was drawing to a close—it 
was the hour for the throng of carriages and of con- 
templative pedestrians. “I don’t think it’s safe, my 
dear,’ said Mrs. Walker. 

“Neither do I,” subjoined Mrs. Miller. “You'll 
get the fever, as sure as you live. Remember what 
Dr. Davis told you!” 

“Give her some medicine before she goes,” said 
Randolph. 

The company had risen to its feet; Daisy, still 
showing her pretty teeth, bent over and kissed her 
hostess. “Mrs. Walker, you are too perfect,” she 


x) 


™ 


DAISY MILLER 57 


said. “I’m not going alone; I am going to meet a 
friend.” 

“Your friend won’t keep you from getting the 
fever,’ Mrs. Miller observed. 

“Ts it Mr. Giovanelli?”’ asked the hostess. 

Winterbourne was watching the young girl; at this 
question his attention quickened. She stood there 
smiling and smoothing her bonnet ribbons; she 
glanced at Winterbourne. Then, while she glanced 
and smiled, she answered, without a shade of hesi- 
tation, “Mr. Giovanelli—the beautiful Giovanelli.”’ 

“My dear young friend,” said Mrs. Walker, tak- 
ing her hand, pleadingly, “don’t walk off to the 
Pincio at this unhealthy hour to meet a beautiful 
Italian.” 

“Well, he speaks English,” said Mrs. Miller. 

“Gracious me!” Daisy exclaimed, “I don’t want 
to do anything improper. There’s an easy way to 
settle it.” She continued to glance at Winterbourne. 
“The Pincio is only a hundred yards distant; and 
if Mr. Winterbourne were as polite as he pretends, 
he would offer to walk with me!” 

Winterbourne’s politeness hastened to affirm itself, 
and the young girl gave him gracious leave to ac- 
company her. They passed down-stairs before her 
mother, and at the door Winterbourne perceived 
Mrs. Miller’s carriage drawn up, with the orna- 
mental courier, whose acquaintance he had made at 


58 DAISY MILLER 


Vevey, seated within. ‘Good-bye, Eugenio!” cried 
Daisy; “I’m going to take a walk.” The distance 
from the Via Gregoriana to the beautiful garden at 
the other end of the Pincian Hill is, in fact, rapidly 
traversed. As the day was splendid, however, and 
the concourse of vehicles, walkers, and loungers 
numerous, the young Americans found their progress 
much delayed. This fact was highly agreeable to 
Winterbourne, in spite of his consciousness of his 
singular situation. The slow-moving, idly-gazing 
Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon the ex- 
tremely pretty young foreign lady who was passing 
through it upon his arm; and he wondered what on 
earth had been in Daisy’s mind when she proposed 
to expose herself, unattended, to its appreciation. 
His own mission, to her sense, apparently, was to 
consign her to the hands of Mr. Giovanelli ; but Win- 
terbourne, at once annoyed and gratified, resolved 
that he would do no such thing. 

“Why haven’t you been to see me?” asked Daisy. 
“You can’t get out of that.” 

“T have had the honor of telling you that I have 
only just stepped out of the train.” 

“You must have stayed in the train a good while 
after it stopped!” cried the young girl, with her lit- 
tle laugh. “I suppose you were asleep. You have 
had time to go to see Mrs. Walker.” ; 

“T knew Mrs. Walker——-’ Winterbourne be- 
gan to explain. 


DAISY MILLER 59 


“T know where you knew her. You knew her at 
Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at 
Vevey. That’s just as good. So you ought to have 
come.” She asked him no other question than this; 
she began to prattle about her own affairs. “We've 
got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they’re 
the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all 
winter, if we don’t die of the fever; and I guess 
Wwerllsstayiithen.) It's.a> creat deal nicer than) 1 
thought; I thought it would be fearfully quiet; I 
was sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we 
should be going round all the time with one of those 
dreadful old men that explain about the pictures and 
things. But we only had about a week of that, and 
now I’m enjoying myself. I know ever so many 
people, and they are all so charming. ‘The society’s 
extremely select. There are all kinds—English and 
Germans and Italians. I think I like the English 
best. I like their style of conversation. But there 
are some lovely Americans. I never saw anything 
so hospitable. There’s something or other every 
day. There’s not much dancing; but I must say I 
never thought dancing was everything. I was al- 
ways fond of conversation. I guess I shall have 
plenty at Mrs. Walker’s, her rooms are so small.” 
When they had passed the gate of the Pincian Gar- 
dens, Miss Miller began to wonder where Mr. Gio- 
vanelli might be. “We had better go straight to that 


60 DATS oy Vidis eink: 


place in front,” she said, “where you look at the 
view.” 

“T certainly shall not help you to find him,” Win- 
terbourne declared. 

“Then I shall find him without you,” said Miss 
Daisy. 

“You certainly won’t leave me!’ cried Winter- 
bourne. 

She burst into her little laugh. “Are you afraid 
you'll get lost—or run over? But there’s Giovanellt, 
leaning against that tree. He’s staring at the women 
in the carriages ; did you ever see anything so cool?” 

Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little 
man standing with folded arms nursing his cane. 
He had a handsome face, an artfully poised hat, a 
glass in one eye, and a nosegay in his buttonhole. 
Winterbourne looked at him a moment, and then 
said, “Do you mean to speak to that man?” 

“Do I mean to speak to him? Why, you don’t 
suppose I mean to communicate by signs?” 

“Pray understand, then,” ae Winterbourne, 

“that I intend to remain with you.” 

Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign 
of troubled consciousness in her face; with nothing 
but the presence of her charming eyes and her happy 
dimples. “Well, she’s a cool one!” thought the 
young man. 

“T don’t like the way you say that,” said Daisy. 
“It’s too imperious.” 


\ 
\ 


\ 


DATSY "MILLER 61 


“T beg your pardon if I say it wrong. The main 
point is to give you an idea of my meaning.” 

The young girl looked at him more gravely, but 
with eyes that were prettier thanever. “I have never 
allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere 
with anything I do.” 

“T think you have made a mistake,”’ said Winter- 
bourne. “You should sometimes listen to a gentle- 
man—the right one.” 

Daisy began to laugh again. “I do nothing but 
listen to gentlemen!’ she exclaimed. “Tell me if 
Mr. Giovanelli is the right one.” 

The gentleman with the nosegay in his bosom had 
now perceived our two friends, and was approach- 
ing the young girl with obsequious rapidity. He 
bowed to Winterbourne as well as to the latter’s 
companion; he had a brilliant smile, an intelligent: 
eye; Winterbourne thought him not a bad-looking 
fellow. But he nevertheless said to Daisy, “No, he’s 
not the right one.” 

Daisy evidently had a natural talent for perform- 
ing introductions; she mentioned the name of each 
of her companions to the other. She strolled along 
with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Gio- 
vanelli, who spoke English very cleverly—Winter- 
bourne afterwards learned that he had practised the 
idiom upon a great many American heiresses—ad- 
dressed to her a great deal of very polite nonsense; 
he was extremely urbane, and the young American, 


62 DATS Yoav DET 


who said nothing, reflected upon that profundity of 
Italian cleverness which enables people to appear 
more gracious in proportion as they are more acutely 
disappointed. Giovanelli, of course, had counted 
upon something more intimate ; he had not bargained 
for a party of three. But he kept his temper in a 
manner which suggested far-stretching intentions. 
Winterbourne flattered himself that he had taken 
his measure. “He is not a gentleman,” said the 
young American; “he is only a clever imitation of 
one. He is a music-master, or a penny-a-liner, or a 
third-rate artist. D*n his good looks!” Mr. Gio- 
vanelli had certainly a very pretty face; but Winter- 
bourne felt a superior indignation at his own lovely 
fellow-country woman’s not knowing the difference 
between a spurious gentleman and a real one. Gio- 
vanelli chattered and jested, and made himself won- 
derfully agreeable. It was true that, if he was an 
imitation, the imitation was brilliant. “Neverthe- 
less,’ Winterbourne said to himself, “a nice girl 
ought to know!’ And then he came back to the 
question whether this was, in fact, a nice girl. 
Would a nice girl, even allowing for her being a 
little American flirt, make a rendezvous with a pre- 
sumably low-lived foreigner? The rendezvous in 
this case, indeed, had been in broad daylight, and 
in the most crowded corner of Rome; but was it not 
impossible to regard the choice of these circum-. 


DAISY MILLER 63 


stances as a proof of extreme cynicism? Singular 
though it may seem, Winterbourne was vexed that 
the young girl, in joining her amoroso, should not 
appear more impatient of his own company, and he 
was vexed because of his inclination. It was im- 
possible to regard her as a perfectly well-conducted 
young lady; she was wanting in a certain indispen- 
sable delicacy. It would therefore simplify matters 
greatly to be able to treat her as the object of one of 
those sentiments which are called by romancers “law- 
less passions.’ That she should seem to wish to get 
rid of him would help him to think more lightly of 
her, and to be able to think more lightly of her would 
make her much less perplexing. But Daisy, on this 
occasion, continued to present herself as an inscrut- 
able combination of audacity and innocence. 

She had been walking some quarter of an hour, 
attended by her two cavaliers, and responding in a 
tone of very childish gayety, as it seemed to Winter- 
bourne, to the pretty speeches of Mr. Giovanelli, 
when a carriage that had detached itself from the re- 
volving train drew up beside the path. At the same 
moment Winterbourne perceived that his friend Mrs. 
Walker—the lady whose house he had lately left— 
was seated in the vehicle, and was beckoning to him. 
Leaving Miss Miller’s side, he hastened to obey her 
summons. Mrs. Walker was flushed; she wore an 
excited air. “It is really too dreadful,’ she said. 


* 


64 DATS Mover 


“That girl must not do this sort of thing. She must 
not walk here with you two men. Fifty people have 
noticed her.” 

Winterbourne raised his eyebrows. “I think it’s a 
pity to make too much fuss about it.” 

“Tt’s a pity to let the girl ruin herself!” 

“She is very innocent,” said Winterbourne. 

“She’s very crazy!” cried Mrs. Walker. “Did 
you ever see anything so imbecile as her mother? 
After you had all left me just now I could not sit 
still for thinking of it. It seemed too pitiful not 
even to attempt to save her. I ordered the carriage 
and put on my bonnet, and came here as quickly as 
possible. Thank Heaven I have found you!” 

“What do you propose to do with us?” asked Win- 
terbourne, smiling. 

“To ask her to get in, to drive her about here for 
half an hour, so that the world may see that she is 
not running absolutely wild, and then to take her 
safely home.” 

“T don’t think it’s a very happy thought,” said 
Winterbourne; “but you can try.” 

Mrs. Walker tried. The young man went in pur- 
suit of Miss Miller, who had simply nodded and 
smiled at his interlocutor in the carriage, and had 
gone her way with her companion. Daisy, on learn- 
ing that Mrs. Walker wished to speak to her, re- 
traced her steps with a perfect good grace and with 
Mr. Giovanelli at her side. She declared that she 


DAISY MILLER 65 


was delighted to have a chance to present this gen- 
tleman to Mrs. Walker. She immediately achieved 
the introduction, and declared that she had never in 
her life seen anything so lovely as Mrs. Walker’s 
carriage-rug. 

“T am glad you admire it,” said this lady, smiling 
sweetly. “Will you get in,and let me put it over 
you?” 

“Oh no, thank you,” said Daisy. “TI shall admire 
it much more as I see you driving round with it.” 

“Do get in and drive with me!” said Mrs. Walker. 

“That would be charming, but it’s so enchanting 
just as I am!” and Daisy gave a brilliant glance at 
the gentlemen on either side of her. 

“It may be enchanting, dear child, but it is not the 
custom here,” urged Mrs. Walker, leaning forward 
in her victoria, with her hands devoutly clasped. 

“Well, it ought to be, then!” said Daisy. “Tf I 
didn’t walk I should expire.” 

“You should walk with your mother, dear,” cried 
the lady from Geneva, losing patience. 

“With my mother, dear!’ exclaimed the young 
girl. Winterbourne saw that she scented interfer- 
ence. “My mother never walked ten steps in her 
life. And then, you know,” she added, with a laugh, 
“T am more than five years old.” 

“You are old enough to be more reasonable. You 
are old enough, dear Miss Miller, to be talked 
about.” 


66 DATS Yeo Visi. 


Daisy looked at Mrs. Walker, smiling intensely. 
“Talked about? What do you mean?” 

“Come into my carriage, and I will tell you.” 

Daisy turned her quickened glance again from one 
of the gentlemen beside her to the other. Mr. Gio- 
vanelli was bowing to and fro, rubbing down his 
' gloves and laughing very agreeably; Winterbourne 
thought it a most unpleasant scene. ‘‘I don’t think 
I want to know what you mean,” said Daisy, pres- 
ently. “TI don’t think I should like it.’ 

Winterbourne wished that Mrs. Walker would 
tuck in her carriage-rug and drive away; but this 
lady did not enjoy being defied, as she afterwards 
told him. “Should you prefer being thought a very 
reckless girl?’ she demanded. 

“Gracious!” exclaimed Daisy. She looked again 
at Mr. Giovanelli, then she turned to Winterbourne. 
There was a little pink flush in her cheek; she was 
tremendously pretty. “Does Mr. Winterbourne 
think,” she added slowly, smiling, throwing back 
her head and glancing at him from head to foot, 
“that, to save my reputation, I ought to get into the 
carriage?” 

Winterbourne colored; for an instant he hesitated 
greatly. It seemed so strange to hear her speak that 
way of her “reputation.” But he himself, in fact, 
must speak in accordance with gallantry. The finest 
gallantry here was simply to tell her the truth, and 
the truth for Winterbourne—as the few indications 


DAIS Y* MICCER 67 


I have been able to give have made him known to the 
reader—was that Daisy Miller should take Mrs. 
Walker’s advice. He looked at her exquisite pretti- 
ness, and then said, ae gently, “I think oe quate 

get into the carriage.” " 


Daisy gave a violent laugh. “I seventies as 


thing so stiff! If this is improper, Mrs. Walker,” 
she pursued, “then I am all improper, and you must 
give me up. ane bye; I hope you’ Il have a lovely 
nea arene salute, ne turned away. 

Mrs. Walker sat looking after her, and there were 
tears in Mrs. Walker’s eyes. “Get in here, sir,” she 
said to Winterbourne, indicating the place beside 
her. The young man answered that he felt bound 
to accompany Miss Miller; whereupon Mrs. Walker 
declared that if he refused her this favor she would 
never speak to him again. She was evidently in 
earnest. Winterbourne overtook Daisy and her 
companion, and, offering the young girl his hand, 
told her that Mrs. Walker had made an imperious 
claim upon his society. He expected that in an- 
swer she would say something rather free, some- 
thing to commit herself still further to that “reck- 
lessness” from which Mrs. Walker had so charitably 
endeavored to dissuade her. But she only shook his 
hand, hardly looking at him; while Mr. Giovanelli 
bade him farewell with a too emphatic flourish of 
the hat. 


68 DAISY; MILEER 


Winterbourne was not in the best possible humor 
as he took his seat in Mrs. Walker’s victoria. “That 
was not clever of you,” he said, candidly, while the 
vehicle mingled again with the throng of carriages. 

“In such a case,’ his companion answered, “I 
don’t wish to be clever; I wish to be earnest!’’ 

“Well, your earnestness has only offended her 
and put her off.” 

“It has happened very well,” said Mrs. Walker. 
“Tf she is so perfectly determined to compromise 
herself, the sooner one knows it the better; one can 
act accordingly.” 

“T suspect she meant no harm,” Winterbourne 
rejoined. 

“So I thought a month ago. But she has been 
going too far.” 

pa has she been doing?’ 

“Every thing that is not done here. Flirting with 


any man she could pick up; sitting in corners ners with 
eer en Tae dancing all the evening ing with 
a same partners; receiving visits at eleven o’clock 
t_night. Her _mother_goes away when visitors 

\ come’ 

“But her brother,” said Winterbourne, laughing, 
“sits up till midnight.” 

“He must be edified by what he sees. I’m told 
that at their hotel every one is talking about her, 
and that a smile goes round among all the servants 
when a gentleman comes and asks for Miss Miller.” 


DAISY MILLER 7a 


“The servants be hanged!” said Winterbourne, 
nee “The poor girl’s only fault,” he presently 
added, “‘is that she is very. uncultivated.” 

“She is naturally indelicate, ” Mrs. Walker de- 
clared. “Take that example this morning. How 
long had you known her at Vevey?” 

“A couple of days.” 

“Fancy, then, her making it a personal matter 
that you should have left the place!” 

Winterbourne was silent for some moments; then 
he said, “I suspect, Mrs. Walker, that you and I 
have lived too long at Geneva!” And he added a 
request that she should inform him with what par- 
ticular design she had made him enter her carriage. 

“T wished to beg you to cease your relations with 
Miss Miller—not to flirt with her—to give her no 
further opportunity to expose herself—to let her 
alone, in short.” 

“’m afraid I can’t do that,’ said Winterbourne. 
“T like her extremely.” 

“All the more reason that you shouldn’t help her 
to make a scandal.” 

“There shall be nothing scandalous in my atten- 
tions to her.”’ 

“There certainly will be in the way she takes them. 
But I have said what I had on my conscience,” Mrs. 
Walker pursued. “If you wish to rejoin the young 
lady I will put you down. Here, by-the-way, you 
have a chance.” 


68 DAISY MILLER 


The carriage was traversing that part of the 
Pincian Garden that overhangs the wall of Rome 
and overlooks the beautiful Villa Borghese. It is 
bordered by a large parapet, near which there are 
several seats. One of the seats at a distance was 
occupied by a gentleman and a lady, towards whom 
Mrs. Walker gave a toss of her head. At the same 
moment these persons rose and walked towards the 
parapet. Winterbourne had asked the coachman to 
stop ; he now descended from the carriage. His com- 
panion looked at him a moment in silence; then, 
while he raised his hat, she drove majestically away. 
Winterbourne stood there; he had turned his eyes 
towards Daisy and her cavalier. They evidently 
saw no one; they were too deeply occupied with each 
other. When they reached the low garden-wall they 
stood a moment looking off at the great flat-topped 
_ pine-clusters of the Villa Borghese; then Giovanelli 
seated himself familiarly upon the broad ledge of the 
wall. The western sun in the opposite sky sent out 
a brilliant shaft through a couple of cloud-bars, 
whereupon Daisy’s companion took her parasol out 
of her hands and opened it. She came a little 
nearer, and he held the parasol over her; then, still 
holding it, he let it rest upon her shoulder, so that 
both of their heads were hidden from Winterbourne. 
This young man lingered a moment, then he began 
to walk. But he walked—not towards the couple 


DAISY. MILLER 7 


with the parasol—towards the residence of his aunt, 
Mrs. Costello. 

He flattered himself on the following day that 
there was no smiling among the servants when he, 
at least, asked for Mrs. Miller at her hotel. This 
lady and her daughter, however, were not at home; 
and on the next day after, repeating his visit, Win- 
terbourne again had the misfortune not to find them. 
Mrs. Walker’s party took place on the evening of 
the third day, and, in spite of the frigidity of his last 
interview with the hostess, Winterbourne was among 
the guests... Mrs. Walker was one of those Ameri- 
can ladies who, while residing abroad, make a point, 
in their own phrase, of studying European society ; 
and she had on this occasion collected several speci- 
mens of her diversely-born fellow-mortals to serve, 
as it were, as text-books.’ When Winterbourne ar- 
rived, Daisy Miller was not there, but in a few mo- 
ments he saw her mother come in alone, very shyly 
and ruefully. Mrs. Miller’s hair above her exposed- 
looking temples was more frizzled than ever. As 
she approached Mrs. Walker, Winterbourne also 
drew. near. 

“You see I’ve come all alone,” said poor Mrs. 
Miller. “I’nt so frightened I don’t know what to 
do. It’s the first time I’ve ever been to a party 
alone, especially in this country. I wanted to bring 
Randolph, or Eugenio, or some one, but Daisy just 


72 DAISY MILLER 


pushed me off by myself. I ain’t used to going 
round alone.” | 

“And does not your daughter intend to favor us 
with her society?” demanded Mrs. Walker, impres- 
sively. 

“Well, Daisy’s all dressed,’ said Mrs. Miller, 
with that accent of the dispassionate, if not of the 
philosophic, historian with which she always re- 
corded the current incidents of her daughter’s 
career. “She got dressed on purpose before dinner. 
But she’s got a friend of hers there; that gentleman 
—the Italian—that she wanted to bring. They’ve 
got going at the piano; it seems as if they couldn't 
leave off. Mr. Giovanelli sings splendidly. But 1 
guess they’ll come before very long,” concluded Mrs. 
Miller, hopefully. 

“T’m sorry she should come in that way,” said 
Mrs. Walker. 

“Well, I told her that there was no use in her 
getting dressed before dinner if she was going to 
wait three hours,” responded Daisy’s mamma. “TI 
didn’t see the use of her putting on such a dress as 
that to sit round with Mr. Giovanelli.” 

“This is most horrible!” said Mrs. Walker, turn- 
ing away and addressing herself to Winterbourne. 
“Elle saffiche. It’s her revenge for my having ven- 
tured to remonstrate with her. When she comes I 
shall not speak to her.” 

Daisy came after eleven o'clock; but she was not, 





DAISY MILLER 73 


on such an occasion, a young lady to wait to be 
spoken to. She rustled forward in radiant loveli- 
ness, smiling and chattering, carrying a large bou- 
-quet, and attended by Mr. Giovanelli. Every one 
stopped talking, and turned and looked at her. She 
came straight to Mrs. Walker. “I’m afraid you 
thought I never was coming, so I sent mother off 
to tell you. I wanted to make Mr. Giovanelli prac- 
tise some things before he came; you know he sings 
beautifully, and I want you to ask him to sing. This 
is Mr. Giovanelli; you know I introduced him to 
you; he’s got the most lovely voice, and he knows 
the most charming set of songs. I made him go 
over them this evening on purpose; we had the great- 
est time at the hotel.” Of all this Daisy delivered 
herself with the sweetest, brightest audibleness, look- 
ing now at her hostess and now round the room, 
while she gave a series of little pats round her shoul- 
ders to the edges of her dress. “Is there any one I 
know ?” she asked. 

“T think every one knows you!” said Mrs. Walker, 
pregnantly, and she gave a very cursory greeting to 
Mr. Giovanelli. This gentleman bore himself gal- 
lantly. He smiled and bowed, and showed his white 
teeth; he curled his mustaches and rolled his eyes, 
and performed all the proper functions of a hand- 
some Italian at an evening party. He sang very 
prettily half a dozen songs, though Mrs. Walker 
afterwards declared that she had been quite unable 


m4 DAISY MILLER 


to find out who asked him. It was apparently not 
Daisy who had given him his orders. Daisy sat at 
a distance from the piano; and though she had pub- 
licly, as it were, professed a high admiration for 
his singing, talked, not inaudibly, while it was going 
on. 

“It’s a pity these rooms are so small; we can’t 
dance,” she said to Winterbourne, as if she had seen 
him five minutes before. 

“T am not sorry we can’t dance,” Winterbourne 
answered; “I don’t dance.” 

“Of course you don’t dance; you're too stiff,” said 
Miss Daisy. “I hope you enjoyed your drive with 
Mrs. Walker!’ 

“No, I didn’t enjoy it; I preferred walking with 
you.” 

“We paired off; that was much better,” said 
Daisy. “But did you ever hear anything so cool as 
Mrs. Walker’s wanting me to get into her carriage 
and drop poor Mr. Giovanelli, and under the pretext 
that it was proper? People have different ideas! It 
would have been most unkind; he had been talking 
about that walk for ten days.” 

“He should not have talked about it at all,” said 
Winterbourne; “he would never have proposed to 
a young lady of this country to walk about the streets 
with him.” 

“About the streets?” cried Daisy, with her pretty 
stare. “Where, then, would he have proposed to 


DAISY MILLER 75 


her to walk? The Pincio is not the streets, either; 
and I, thank goodness, am not a young lady of this 
country. The young ladies of this country have a 
dreadfully poky time of it, so far as I can learn; 
I don’t see why I should change my habits for 
them.” 

“T am afraid your habits are those of a flirt,” said 
Winterbourne, gravely. 

“Of course they are,” she cried, giving him her 
little smiling stare again. “I’m a fearful, frightful 
flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was 
not? But I suppose you will tell me now that I am 
not a nice girl.” 

“You're a very nice girl; but I wish you would 
flirt with me, and me only,” said Winterbourne. 

“Ah! thank you—thank you very much; you are 
the last man I should think of flirting with. PASeD te 
have had have had the pleasure of informing yo you, you a are too 
stiff.” 

“You say that too often,” said Winterbourne. 

Daisy gave a delighted laugh. “Tf T « could | have 
_the is hope of making y you angry, I should ’s say 

Site again.” 

“Don’t do that; when I am angry I’m stiffer than 
ever. But if you won't flirt with me, do cease, at 
least, to flirt with your friend at the piano; they 
don’t understand that sort of thing here.” 

“IT thought they understood nothing else!’ ex- 
claimed Daisy. 





(76 DAISY MILLER 


“Not in young unmarried women.” 

“Tt seems to me much more proper in young un- 
married women than in old married ones,” Day 
declared. 

“Well,” said Winterbourne, “when you deal with 


natives e u_must go by the custom of the place. 
Flirtin rican custom; it doesn’t 
iced So when you show yourself in public 
with Mr. Giovanelli, and without your mother "i 

“Gracious! poor mother!” interposed Daisy. 

“Though you may be flirting, Mr. Giovanelli is” 
not; he means something else.” 

“He isn’t preaching, at any rate,” said Daisy, with 
vivacity. “And if you want very much to know, we 
are neither of us flirting; we are.too good friends 
for that; we are very intimate friends.” 

“Ah!” rejoined Winterbourne, “if you are in love 
with each other, it is another affair.” 

She had allowed him up to this point to talk so 
frankly that he had no expectation.of shocking her 
by this ejaculation; but she immediately got up, 
blushing visibly, and leaving him to exclaim mentally 
that little American flirts were the queerest creatures 
in the world. “‘Mr. Giovanelli, at least,’ she said, 
giving her interlocutor a single glance, “never says 
such very disagreeable things to me.” 

Winterbourne was bewildered; he stood staring. 
Mr. Giovanelli had finished singing. He left the 
piano and came over to Daisy. ‘“Won’t you come 





DAISY MILLER 77 


into the other room and have some tea?” he asked, 
bending before her with his ornamental smile. 

Daisy turned to Winterbourne, beginning to smile 
again. He was still more perplexed, for this incon- 
sequent smile made nothing clear, though it seemed 
to prove, indeed, that she had a sweetness and soft- 
ness that reverted instinctively to the pardon of of- 
fences. “It has never occurred to Mr. Winterbourne 
to offer me any tea,” she said, with her little tor- 
menting manner. 

“T have offered you advice,” Winterbourne re- 
joined. 

“I prefer weak tea!” cried Daisy, and she went 
off with the brilliant Giovanelli. She sat with him 
in the adjoining room, in the embrasure of the win- 
dow, for the rest of the evening. There was an in- 
teresting performance at the piano, but neither of 
these young people gave heed to it. When Daisy 
came to take leave of Mrs. Walker, this lady con- 
scientiously repaired the weakness of which she had 
been guilty at the moment of the young girl’s arrival. 
She turned her back straight upon Miss Miller, and 
left her to depart with what grace she might. Win- 
terbourne was standing near the door; he saw it all. 
Daisy turned very pale, and looked at her mother; 
but Mrs. Miller was humbly unconscious of any vio- 
lation of the usual social forms. She appeared, in- 
deed, to have felt an incongruous impulse to draw 
attention to her own striking observance of them. 


78 DAISY MILLER 


“Good-night, Mrs. Walker,” she said; “we’ve had a 
beautiful evening. You see, if I let Daisy come. to 
parties without me, I don’t want her to go away 
without me.” Daisy turned away, looking with a 
pale, grave face at the circle near the door; Winter- 
bourne saw that, for the first moment, she was too 
much shocked and puzzled even for indignation. He 
on his side was greatly touched. 

“That was very cruel,’ he said to Mrs. Walker. 

“She never enters my drawing-room again!” re-» 
plied his hostess. 

Since Winterbourne was not to meet her in Mrs. 
Walker’s drawing-room, he went as often as pos- 
sible to Mrs. Miller’s hotel. The ladies were rarely 
at home; but when he found them the devoted Gio- 
vanelli was always present. Very often the brilliant 
little Roman was in the drawing-room with Daisy 
alone, Mrs. Miller being apparently constantly of the 
opinion that discretion is the better part of surveil- 
lance. Winterbourne noted, at first with surprise, 
that Daisy on these occasions was never embarrassed 
or annoyed by his own entrance; but he very pres- 
ently began to feel that she had no more surprises 
for him; the unexpected in her behavior was the only 
thing to expect. She showed no displeasure at her 
téte-a-tete with Giovanelli being interrupted; she 
could chatter as freshly and freely with two gentle- 
men as with one; there was always, in her conversa- 
tion, the same odd mixture of audacity and puerility. 


DAISY MILLER “0 


Winterbourne remarked to himself that if she was 
seriously interested in Giovanelli, it was very singu- 
|lar that she should not take more trouble to preserve 
‘the sanctity of their interviews; and he liked her 
the more for her innocent-looking indifference and 
her apparently inexhaustible good-humor. He could 
|hardly have said why, but she seemed to him a girl 
‘who would never be jealous. At the risk of exciting 
a somewhat derisive smile on the reader’s part, I may 
affirm that with regard to the women who had 
hitherto interested him, it very often seemed to 
Winterbourne among the possibilities that, given 
‘certain contingencies, he should be afraid—literally 
|afraid—of these ladies; he had a pleasant sense that 
he should never be afraid of Daisy Miller. It must 
be added that this sentiment was not altogether flat- 
tering to Daisy; it was part of his conviction, or 
‘rather of his apprehension, that she would prove a 
very light young person. 

_ But she was evidently very much interested in 
Giovanelli. She looked at him whenever he spoke; 
|she was perpetually telling him to do this and to do 
that; she was constantly “chaffing’ and abusing 
Ib ee She appeared completely to have forgotten 
that Winterbourne had said anything to displease 
wher at Mrs. Walker’s little party. One Sunday 
‘afternoon, having gone to St. Peter’s with his aunt, 
| Winterbourne perceived Daisy strolling about the 


great church in company with the inevitable Gio- 








| 
| 
) 


80 DAISY “MILLER 


vanelli. Presently he pointed out the young girl and 
her cavalier to Mrs. Costello. This lady looked at 
them a moment through her eye-glass, and then she 
said, 

“That’s what makes you so pensive in these days, 
eh?” 

“T had not the least idea I was pensive,” said the 
young man. 

“You are very much preoccupied; you are think- 
ing of something.” 

“And what is it,” he asked, “that you accuse me 
of thinking of ?” 

“Of that young lady’s—Miss Baker’s, Miss 
Chandler’s—what’s her name?—Miss Miller’s 1n- 
trigue with that little barber’s block.” 

“Do you call it an intrigue,’”’ Winterbourne asked 
—‘“an affair that goes on with such peculiar pub- 
licity ?” 

“That’s their folly,” said Mrs. Costello; “it’s not 
their merit.” 

“No,” rejoined Winterbourne, with something of 
that pensiveness to which his aunt had alluded. “I 
don’t believe that there is anything to be called an 
intrigue.” 

“T have heard a dozen people speak of it; they 
say she is quite carried away by him.” 

“They are certainly very intimate,’ said Winter- 
bourne. 

Mrs. Costello inspected the young couple again 
with her optical instrument. “He is very handsome. 


DELS VLC ER 81 


One easily sees how it is. She thinks him the most 
jelegant man in the world—the finest gentleman. 
She has never seen anything like him; he is better, 
even, than the courier. It was the courier, prob- 
ably, who introduced him; and if he succeeds in 
marrying the young lady, the courier will come in 
for a magnificent commission.” 

_ “J don’t believe she thinks of marrying him,” said 
Winterbourne, “and I don’t believe he hopes to 
marry her.” 

“You may be very sure she thinks of nothing. 





‘She goes on from day to day, from hour to hour, 
as they did in the Golden Age. I can imagine noth- 
ing more vulgar. And at the same time,” added 
|Mrs. Costello, “depend upon it that she may tell you 
‘any moment that she is ‘engaged.’ ” 

“1 think that is more than Giovanelli expects,” 
said Winterbourne. 

| “Who is Giovanelli?” 

| “The little Italian. I have asked questions about 
him, and learned something. He is apparently a 
perfectly respectable little man. I believe he is, in 
a small way, a cavaliere avvocato. But he doesn’t 
move in what are called the first circles. I think it 
is really not absolutely impossible that the courier 
introduced him. He is evidently immensely charmed 
‘with Miss Miller. If she thinks him the finest gen- 
‘tleman in the world, he, on his side, has never found 
“himself in personal contact with such splendor, such 











82 DAISY, MILLER 


opulence, such expensiveness, as this young lady’s. 
And then she must seem to him wonderfully pretty 
and interesting. I rather doubt that he dreams of 
marrying her. That must appear to him too im- 
possible a piece of luck. He has nothing but his 
handsome face to offer, and there is a substantial 
Mr. Miller in that mysterious land of dollars. 
Giovanelli knows that he hasn’t a title to offer. If 
he were only a count or a marchese! He must won- 
der at his luck, at the way they have taken him up.” 

“He accounts for it by his handsome face, and 
thinks Miss Miller a young lady qui se passe ses fan- 
taisies!” said Mrs. Costello. 

“Tt is very true,” Winterbourne pursued, “that 
Daisy and her mamma have not yet risen to that 
stage of—what shall I call it ?—of culture, at which 
the idea of catching a count or a marchese begins. 
I believe that they are intellectually incapable of that 
conception.” 

“Ah! but the aevvocato can’t believe it,” said Mrs. 
Costello. , 

Of the observation excited by Daisy’s “intrigue,” 
Winterbourne gathered that day at St. Peter’s suf- 
ficient evidence. A dozen of the American colonists 
in Rome came to talk with Mrs. Costello, who sat 
on a little portable stool at the base of one of the 
great pilasters. The vesper service was going for- 
ward in splendid chants and organ-tones in the 
adjacent choir, and meanwhile, between Mrs. Cos- 


DAISY MILLER 83 


tello and her friends, there was a great deal said 
about poor little Miss Miller’s going really “‘too far.” 
Winterbourne was not pleased with what he heard; 
but when, coming out upon the great steps of the 
church, he saw Daisy, who had emerged before 
him, get into-an open cab with her accomplice and 
roll away through the cynical streets of Rome, he 
could not deny to himself that she was going very 
far indeed. He felt very sorry for her—not exactly 
that he believed that she had completely lost her 
head, but because it was painful to hear so much that 
was pretty and undefended and natural assigned to 
a vulgar place among the categories of disorder. 
He made an attempt after this to give a hint to, 
Mrs. Miller. He met one day in the Corso a friend, 
a tourist like himself, who had just come out of 
the Doria Palace, where he had been walking 
through the beautiful gallery. His friend talked 
for a moment about the superb portrait of Innocent 
X., by Velasquez, which hangs in one of the cabi- 
nets of the palace, and then said, “And in the same 
cabinet, by-the-way, I had the pleasure of contem- 
plating a picture of a different kind—that pretty 
American girl whom you pointed out to me last 
week.”’ Jn answer to Winterbourne’s inquiries, his 
friend narrated that the pretty American girl— 
prettier than ever—was seated with a companion in 
the secluded nook in which the great papal portrait 
was enshrined. 


84 DAISY MILLER 


“Who was her companion?” asked Winterbourne. 

“A little Italian with a bouquet in his button-hole. 
The girl is delightfully pretty ; but I thought I under- 
stood from you the other day that she was a young 
lady du meilleur monde.” 

“So she is!’ answered Winterbourne; and having 
assured himself that his informant had seen Daisy 
and her companion but five minutes before, he 
jumped into a cab and went to call on Mrs. Miller. 
She was at home; but she apologized to him for re- 
ceiving him in Daisy’s absence. 

“She’s gone out somewhere with Mr. Giovanelli,” 
said Mrs. Miller. “She’s always going round with 
Mr. Giovanelli.” 

“{ have noticed that they are very intimate,” 
Winterbourne observed. 

“Oh, it seems as if they couldn’t live without each 
other!” said Mrs. Miller. “Well, he’s a real gentle- 
man, anyhow. I keep telling Daisy she’s engaged!” 

“And what does Daisy say?” 

“Oh, she says she isn’t engaged. But she might 
as well be!” this impartial parent resumed; “‘she 
goes on as if she was. But I’ve made Mr. Giovanelli 
promise to tell me, if she doesn’t. I should want to 
write to Mr. Miller about it—shou!dn’t you?” 

Winterbourne replied that he certainly should; 
and the state of mind of Daisy’s mamma struck him 
as so unprecedented in the annals of parental vigi- 


DAISY MILLER 85 


ance that he gave up as utterly irrelevant the attempt 
o place her upon her guard. 
After this Daisy was never at home, and. ‘Winter- 
ourne ceased to meet her at the houses of their 
ommon acquaintances, because, as he perceived, 
these shrewd people had quite made up their minds 
hat she was going too far) They ceased to invite 
er; and they intimated that they desired to express 
o observant Europeans the great truth that, though 
Miss Daisy Miller was a young American lady, her 
as: was not representative—was regarded by 
i compatriots as abnormal. Winterbourne won- 

ered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that 
were turned towards her, and sometimes it annoyed 
him to suspect that she did not feel at all. He said 
to himself that she was too light and childish, too 
uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have 
reflected upon her ostracism, or even to have per- 
ceived it. Then at other moments he believed that 
she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible 
little organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly ob- 
‘servant consciousness of the impression she pro- 
duced. He asked himself whether Daisy’s defiance 
‘came from the consciousness of innocence, or from 
her being, essentially, a young person of the reck- 
ess class. It must be AEST neh holding one’s 
self to a belief in Daisy’s ‘innocence’ came to seem 
‘to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-. 








86 DAISY; MILLER 


spun gallantry. As I have already had occasion to. 
relate, he was angry at finding himself reduced to| 
chopping logic about this young lady; he was vexed | 
at his want of instinctive certitude as to how far her} 
eccentricities were generic, national, and how far | 
they were personal. From either view of them he | 
had somehow missed her, and now it was too late. 
She was “carried away” by Mr. Giovanelli. | 
A few days after his brief interview with her, 
mother, he encountered her in that beautiful abode | 
of flowering desolation known as the Palace of the, 
Czsars.. The early Roman spring had filled the air, 
with bloom and perfume, and the rugged surface of. i 
the Palatine was muffled with tender verdure. Daisy, 
was strolling along the top of one of those great. 
mounds of ruin that are embanked with mossy mar-) 
ble and paved with monumental inscriptions. It. 
seemed to him that Rome had never been so lovely as, 
just then. He stood looking off at the enchanting 
harmony of line and color that remotely encircles, 
the city, inhaling the softly humid odors, and feel-. 
ing the freshness of the year and the antiquity of the, 
place reaffirm themselves in mysterious interfusion.. 
It seemed to him, also, that Daisy had never looked. 
so pretty; but this had been an observation of his 
whenever he met her. Giovanelli was at her side, | 
and Giovanelli, too, wore an aspect of even haa | 
brilliancy. 








ti! 


DAISY MILLER _ 87 


“Well,” said Daisy, “I should think you would be 
lonesome!” 

“Lonesome?” asked Winterbourne. 

“Vou are always going round by yourself. Can't 
you get any one to walk with you?” 

“T am not so fortunate,” said Winterbourne, “as 
your companion.” 

Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winter- 
bourne with distinguished politeness. He listened 
with a deferential air to his remarks; he laughed 
punctiliously at his pleasantries ; he seemed disposed 
to testify to his belief that Winterbourne was a su- 
perior young man. He carried himself in no degree 
like a jealous wooer; he had obviously a great deal 
of tact; he had no objection to your expecting a 
little humility of him. It even seemed to Winter- 
bourne at times that Giovanelli would find a certain 
mental relief in being able to have a private under- 
standing with him—to say to him, as an intelligent 
man, that, bless you, he knew how extraordinary _ 
was this young lady, and didn’t flatter himself with 
delusive—or, at least, too delusive—hopes of matrt- 
mony and dollars. On this occasion he strolled 
away from his companion to pluck a sprig of 
almond-blossom, which he carefully arranged in his 
button-hole. 

“T know why you say that,” said Daisy, watching 
Giovanelli. “Because you think I go round too much 


88 DAISY MILLER 


with him.” And she nodded at her attendant. 

“Every one thinks so—if you care to know,” said 
Winterbourne. 

“Of course I care to know!” Daisy exclaimed, 
seriously. “But I don’t believe it. They are only 
pretending to be shocked. They don’t really care 
a straw what I do. Besides, I don’t go round so 
much,” 

“I think you will find they do care. They will 
show it disagreeably.” 

Daisy looked at him a moment. “How disagree- 
ably ?” 

“Haven’t you noticed anything?” Winterbourne 
asked. , 

“I have noticed you. But I noticed you were as 
‘stiff as an umbrella the first time I saw you.” 

“You will find I am not so stiff as several others,” 
said Winterbourne, smiling. 

“How shall I find it?” 

“By going to see the others.” 

“What will they do to me?” 

“They will give you the cold shouldér. Do you 
know what that means?” 

Daisy was looking at him intently; she began to 
color. 

“Do you mean as Mrs. Walker did the other 
night ?” 

“Exactly!” said Winterbourne. 

She looked away at Giovanelli, who was decorat- 


DAISY MILLER 89 


ing himself with his almond-blossom. Then, look- 
ing back at Winterbourne, “I shouldn’t think you 
would let people be so unkind!” she said. 

“How can I help it?” he asked. 

“T should think you would say something.” 

“T did say something ;’ and he paused a moment. 
“I say that your mother tells me that she believes 
you are engaged.” 

“Well, she does,” said Daisy, very simply. 

Winterbourne began to laugh. “And does Ran- 
dolph believe it?’ he asked. 

“T guess Randolph doesn’t believe anything,” said 
Daisy. Randolph’s scepticism excited Winterbourne 
to further hilarity, and he observed that Giovanelli 
was coming back to them. Daisy, observing it too, 
addressed herself again to her countryman. “Since 
you have mentioned it,” she said, “I am engaged.” 
. . . Winterbourne looked at her; he had stopped 
laughing. “You don’t believe it!’ she added. 

He was silent a moment; and then, “‘Yes, I be- 
lieve it,” he said. 

“Oh, no, you don’t!” she answered. ‘Well, then 
—I am not!” 

The young girl and her cicerone were on their 
way to the gate of the enclosure, so that Winter- 
bourne, who had but lately entered, presently took 
leave of them. A week afterwards he went to dine 
at a beautiful villa on the Celian Hill, and, on 
arriving, dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening 


go DAISY OMILUER 


was charming, and he promised himself the satis- 
faction of walking home beneath the Arch of Con- 
stantine and past the vaguely-lighted monuments of 
the Forum. There was a waning moon in the sky, 
-and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was 
veiled in a thin cloud-curtain which seemed to diffuse 
and equalize it. When, on his return from the villa 
(it was eleven o’clock), Winterbourne approached 
the dusky circle of the Colosseum, it occurred to him, 
as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in 
the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance. 
He turned aside and walked to one of the empty 
arches, near which, as he observed, an open carriage 
—one of the little Roman street-cabs—was sta- 
tioned. Then he passed in, among the cavernous 
shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon 
the clear and silent arena. The place had never 
seemed to him more impressive. One-half of the 
gigantic circus was in deep shade, the other was 
sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there 
he began to murmur Byron’s famous lines, out of 
“Manfred”; but before he had finished his quota- 
tion he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in 
the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they 
are deprecated by the doctors. The historic atmos- 
phere was there, certainly; but the historic atmos- 
phere, scientifically considered, was no better than 
a villanous miasma. Winterbourne walked to the 
middle of the arena, to take a more general glance, 


DAISY MILLER Doe 


intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. The 
great cross in the centre was covered with shadow; 
it was only as he drew near it that he made it out 
distinctly. Then he saw that two persons were 
stationed upon the low steps which formed its base. 
One of these was a woman, seated; her companion 
was standing in front of her. 

Presently the sound of the woman’s voice came to 
him distinctly in the warm night air. “Well, he 
looks at us as one of the old lions or tigers may 
have looked at the Christian martyrs!’ These were 
the words he heard, in the familiar accent of Miss 
Daisy Miller. 

“Let us hope he is not very hungry,” responded 
the ingenious Giovanelli. “He will have to take me 
first; you will serve for dessert!” 

Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of horror, and, 
it must be added, with a sort of relief. It was as if 
a sudden illumination had been flashed upon the 
ambiguity of Daisy’s behavior, and the riddle had 
become easy to read.. She was a young lady whom a 
gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect.) 
He stood there looking at her—looking at her com- 
panion, and not reflecting that though he saw them 
vaguely, he himself must have been more brightly 
visible. He felt angry with himself that he had 
bothered so much about the right way of regarding 
Miss Daisy Miller. Then, as he was going to ad- 
vance again, he checked himself; not from the fear 


bf 


92 DAIS YeMILEBR 


that he was doing her injustice, but from the sense 
of the danger of appearing unbecomingly exhilarated 
by this sudden revulsion from cautious criticism. 
He turned away towards the entrance of the place, 
but, as he did so, he heard Daisy speak again. 

“Why, it was Mr. Winterbourne! He saw me, 
and he cuts me!” 

What a clever little reprobate she was, and how 
smartly she played at injured innocence! But he 
wouldn’t cut her. Winterbourne came forward 
again, and went towards the great cross. Daisy had 
got up; Giovanelli lifted his hat. Winterbourne 
had now begun to think simply of the craziness, 
from a sanitary point of view, of a delicate young 
girl lounging away the evening in this nest of 
malaria. What if she were a clever little repro- 
bate? that was no reason for her dying of the per- 
mctosa. “How long have you been here?” he asked, 
almost brutally. | 

Daisy, lovely in the flattering moonlight, looked 
at him a moment. Then—‘*All the evening,” she 
answered, gently... . “I never saw anything so 
pretty.” 

“T am afraid,” said Winterbourne, “that you will — 
not think Roman fever very pretty; This is the way 
people catch it. I wonder,’ he added, turning to 
Giovanelli, “that you, a native Roman, should coun- 
tenance such a terrible indiscretion.” 


% 


DAISY MILLER 93 


“Ah,” said the handsome native, “for myself I am 
not afraid.” 

“Neither am I—for you! I am speaking os this 
young lady.” 
 Giovanelli lifted his well-shaped eyebrows and 
showed his brilliant teeth. But he took Winter- 
bourne’ s rebuke with docility. “I told the signorina 
it was a grave indiscretion; but when was the sig- 
norina ever prudent?” 

“T never was sick, and I don’t mean to be!’ the 
signorina declared. “I don’t look like much, but 
I’m healthy! I was bound to see the Colosseum by 
Rosanne I shouldn’t have wanted to go home 
without that; and we have had the most beautiful 
time, haven’t we, Mr. Giovanelli? If there has 
been any danger, Eugenio can give me some pills. 
He has got some sptanetty pills.” 

“T should advise you,” said Winterbourne, “to 
‘drive home as fast as een and take one!’ 

“What you say is very wise,” Giovanelli rejoined. 

“YT will go and make sure the carriage is at hand.” 

And he went forward rapidly. 

Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He kept 
looking at her; she seemed not in the least embar- 
-rassed. Winterbourne said nothing ; Daisy chattered 
about the beauty of the place. “Well, I have seen 

‘the Colosseum by moonlight!” she exclaimed. 

“That’s one good thing.” Then, noticing Winter- 


94 DAISY) MILLER | 


| 
bourne’s silence, she asked him why he didn’t speak., 
He made no answer; he only began to laugh. They. 
passed under one of the dark archways; Giovanelli. 
was in front with the carriage. Here Daisy stopped; 
a moment, looking at the young American. “Did: 
you believe I was engaged the other day?” she. 
asked. | 

“Tt doesn’t matter what I believed the other 
day,” said Winterbourne, still laughing. 

“Well, what do you believe now?” 

“T believe that it makes very little differences 
whether you are engaged or not!’ 

He felt the young girl’s pretty eyes fixed upon 
him through the thick gloom of the archway; she 
was apparently going to answer. But Giovanelli 
hurried her forward. “Quick! quick!” he said; “if 
we get in by midnight we are quite safe.” 

Daisy took her seat in the carriage, and the for- 
tunate Italian placed himself beside her. ‘Don’t for- 
get Eugenio’s pills!” said Winterbourne, as he lifted 
his hat. 

“T don’t care,” said Daisy, in a little strange tone, 
“whether I have Roman fever or not!’ Upon this 
the cab-driver cracked his whip, and they rolled 
away over the desultory patches of the antique pave- 
ment. 

Winterbourne, to do him justice, as it were, men- 
tioned to no one that he had encountered Miss 
Miller, at midnight, in the Colosseum with a gentle- 


DAISY MILLER 95 


man, but, nevertheless, a couple of days later, the 
fact of her having been there under these circum- 
stances was known to every member of the little 
American circle, and commented accordingly. | 
Winterbourne reflected that they had of course 
known it at the hotel, and that, after Daisy’s return, 
there had been an exchange of remarks between the 
porter and the cab-driver. But the young man was 
conscious, at the same moment, that it had ceased 
to be a matter of serious regret to him that the 
little American flirt should be “talked about” by 
low-minded menials. These people, a day or two 
later, had serious information to give: the little 
American flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterbourne, 
when the rumor came to him, immediately went to 
the hotel for more news. He found that two or 
three charitable friends had preceded him, and that 
they were being entertained in Mrs. Miller’s salon 
‘by Randolph. 
 *Tt?s going round at night,” said Randolph— 
“that’s what made her sick. She’s always going 
round at night. I shouldn’t think she’d want to, 
it’s so plaguy dark. You can’t see anything here 
at night, except when there’s a moon! In America 
‘there’s always a moon!” Mrs. Miller was invisible ; 
she was now, at least, giving her daughter the ad- 
vantage of her society. It was evident that Daisy 
“was dangerously ill. 

Winterbourne went often to ask for news of her, 


| 
06 DAISY MILLER 


and once he saw Mrs. Miller, who, though deeply | 
alarmed, was, rather to his surprise, perfectly com- 
posed, and, as it appeared, a most efficient and judi- 
cious nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr. 
Davis, but Winterboutife. paid her the- compliment 
of saying to himself that she was not, after all, such 
a monstrous goose. “Daisy spoke of you the other 
day,’ she said to him. “Half the time she doesn’t 
know what she’s saying, but that time I think she 
did. She gavgeme 2. message. She told me to tell 
you—she told me to tell you that she never was en- 
gaged to that handsome Italian. I am sure I am 
very glad... Mr. Giovanelli hasn’t been near us since 
she was taken ill. I thought hg «was S much of 4 
gentleman ; but I don’t call that very polite! A lady 
told me that he was afraid I was angry with him for 
taking Daisy round at night. Well, so I am; but 
I suppose he knows I’m a lady. I would scorn to’ 
scold him. Anyway, she says she’s not engaged. 
I don’t know why she wanted you to know; but she 
said to me three times, ‘Mind you tell Mr. Winter- 
bourne.’ And then she told me to ask if you remem- 
bered the time you went to that castle in Switzer- 
land. But I said I wouldn’t give any such mes- 
sages as that. Only, if she is not engaged, I’m 
sure [’m glad to know it.” 

But, as Winterbourne had said, it mattered very 
little. A week after this the poor girl died; it had 
been a terrible case of the fever. Daisy’s grave 

















DAISY MILLER 97 


was in the little Protestant cemetery, in an angle 
of the wall of imperial Rome, beneath the cypresses 
and the thick spring-flowers. Winterbourne stood 
there beside it, with a number of other mourners— 
a number larger than the scandal excited by the 
young lady’s career would have led you to expect. 
Near him stood Giovanelli, who came nearer still 
before Winterbourne turned away. Giovanelli 
was very pale: on this occasion he had no flower 
in his button-hole; he seemed to wish to say some- 
thing. At last he said, ‘““She was the most beautiful 
young lady I ever saw, and the most amiable;” and 
then he added in a moment, “‘and she was the most 
innocent.” 

Winterbourne looked at him, and presently re- 
peated his words, “And the most innocent?” 

“The most innocent!’ 

Winterbourne felt sore and angry. ‘‘Why the 
devil,” he asked, “did you take her to that fatal 
placer” 

Mr. Giovanelli’s urbanity was apparently imper- 
turbable. He looked on the ground a moment, and 
then he said, “For myself I had no fear; and she 
wanted to go.” 

“That was no reason!” Winterbourne declared. 

The subtle Roman again dropped his eyes. “If 
she had lived, I should have got nothing. She 
would never have married me, I am sure.” 

“She would never have married you?” 


98 DAISY MILLER 


“For a moment I hoped so. But no, I am sure.” 

Winterbourne listened to him: he stood staring 
at the raw protuberance among the April daisies. 
When he turned away again, Mr. Giovanelli with 
his light, slow step, had retired. 

Winterbourne almost immediately left Rome; but 
the following summer he again met his aunt, Mrs. 
Costello, at Vevey. Mrs. Costello was fond of 
Vevey. In the interval Winterbourne had often 
thought of Daisy Miller and her mystifying man- 
ners. One day he spoke of her to his aunt—said 
it was on. his conscience that he had done her 
injustice. 

“IT am sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Costello. 
“How did your injustice affect her?” 

“She sent me a message before her death which 
I didn’t understand at the time; but I have under- 
stood it since. She would have appreciated one’s 
esteem.” 

“Is that a modest way,” asked Mrs. Costello, 

“of saying that she would have reciprocated one’s 
affection ?” 

Winterbourne offered no answer to this question; 
but he presently said, “You were right in that re- 
mark that you made last summer. I was booked to 
make a mistake. I have lived too long in foreign 
parts.” 

Nevertheless, he went back to live at Geneva, 
whence there continue to come the most contradic- 


DAISY MILLER 99 


tory accounts of his motives of sojourn: a report 
that he is “studying” hard—an intimation that he 
is much interested in a very clever foreign lady. 


A 


wy Clg 
aloe ate 
’ We a 





AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


a | 
LA. 4 | 
me q i 
a 
a +f 
rie 





LEP oe RED AE 


Four years ago—in 1874—two young English- 
men had occasion to go to the United States. They 
crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, arriving in 
New York on the first day of August, were much 
struck with the fervid temperature of that city. 
Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into 
one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey 
passengers to the hotels, and, with a great deal of 
bouncing and bumping, took their course through 
Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York 
is not, perhaps, the most favorable one; still, it is 
not without its picturesque and even brilliant side. 
Nothing could well resemble less a typical English 
street than the interminable avenue, rich in incon- 
gruities, through which our two travellers advanced 
—looking out on each side of them at the comfort- 
able animation of the sidewalks, the high-colored, 
heterogeneous architecture, the huge, white marble 
facades glittering in the strong, crude light, and be- 
dizened with gilded lettering, the multifarious awn- 
ings, banners, and streamers, the extraordinary 

103 


104 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


number of omnibuses, horse-cars, and other demo- 
cratic vehicles, the venders of cooling fluids, the 
white trousers and big straw-hats of the policemen, 
the tripping gait of the modish young persons on 
the pavement, the general brightness, newness, ju- 
venility, both of people and things. The young men 
had exchanged few observations; but in crossing 
Union Square, in front of the monument to Wash- 
ington—in the very shadow, indeed, projected by 
the image of the pater patrig—one of them remarked 
to the other, “It seems a rum-looking place.” 

“Ah, very odd, very odd,” said the other, who 
was the clever man of the two. 

“Pity it’s so beastly hot,’ resumed the first 
speaker, after a pause. : 

“You know we are in a low latitude,” said his 
friend. 

“T dare say,” remarked the other. 

“T wonder,” said the second speaker, presently, 
“if they can give one a bath?” 

“T dare say not,” rejoined the other. 

“Oh, I say!” cried his comrade. 

This animated discussion was checked by their 
arrival at the hotel, which had been recommended | 
to them by an American gentleman whose acquaint- ~ 
ance they made—with whom, indeed, they became 
very intimate—on the steamer, and who had pro- 
posed to accompany them to the inn and introduce 
them, in a friendly way, to the proprietor. This 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 105 


plan, however, had been defeated by their friend’s 
finding that his “partner” was awaiting him on the 
wharf, and that his commercial associate desired 
him instantly to come and give his attention to cer- 
tain telegrams received from St. Louis. But the 
two Englishmen, with nothing but their national 
prestige and personal graces to recommend them, 
were very well received at the hotel, which had an 
air of capacious hospitality. They found that a 
bath was not unattainable, and were indeed struck 
with the facilities for prolonged and reiterated 
immersion with which their apartment was sup- 
plied. After bathing a good deal—more, indeed, 
than they had ever done before on a single occasion 
—they made their way into the dining-room of the 
hotel, which was a spacious restaurant, with a foun- 
tain in the middle, a great many tall plants in orna- 
mental tubs, and an array of French waiters. The 
first dinner on land after a sea-voyage is, under any 
circumstances, a delightful occasion, and there was 
something particularly agreeable in the circum- 
stances in which our young Englishmen found 
themselves. They were extremely good-natured 
young men; they were more observant than they 
appeared; in a sort of inarticulate, accidentally dis- 
simulative fashion, they were highly appreciative. 
This was, perhaps, especially the case with the 
elder, who was also, as I have said, the man of 
talent. They sat down at a little table, which was a 


106 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


very different affair from the great clattering see- 
saw in the saloon of the steamer. The wide doors 
and windows of the restaurants stood open, beneath 
large awnings, to a wide pavement, where there 
were other plants in tubs and rows of spreading 
trees, and beyond which there was a large, shady 
square, without any palings, and with marble-paved 
walks. And above the vivid verdure rose other 
facades of white marble and of pale chocolate-col- 
ored stone, squaring themselves against the deep 
blue sky. Here, outside, in the light and the shade 
and the heat, there was a great tinkling of the bells 
of innumerable street-cars, and a constant strolling 
and shuffling and rustling of many pedestrians, a 
large proportion of whom were young women in 
Pompadour-looking dresses. Within, the place 
was cool and vaguely lighted, with the plash of 
water, the odor of flowers, and the flitting of French 
waiters, as I have said, upon soundless carpets. 

. “It’s rather like Paris, you know,” said the 
younger of our two travellers. 

“Tt’s like Paris—only more so,” his companion 
rejoined. 

“T suppose it’s the French waiters,” said the first 
speaker. ‘Why don’t they have French waiters in 
London ?”’ 

“Fancy a French waiter at a club,” said his 
friend. 

The young Englishman stared a little, as if he 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 107 


could not fancy it. ‘In Paris I’m very apt to dine 
at a place where there’s an English waiter. Don’t 
you know what’s-his-name’s, close to the thingum- 
They always set an English waiter at me. 1 
suppose they think I can’t speak French.” 

| “Well, you can’t.”’ And the elder of the young 
Englishmen unfolded his napkin. 

His companion took no notice whatever of this 
declaration. “I say,” he resumed, in a moment, “we 
must learn to speak American. 1 suppose we must 
take lessons.” 

“T can’t understand them,” said the clever man. 
“What the deuce is he saying?” asked his com- 
rade, appealing from the French waiter. 

“He is recommendnig some soft-shell crabs,” said 
the clever man. 

And so, in desultory observation of the idiosyn- 
crasies of the new society in which they found them- 
selves, the young Englishmen proceeded to dine— 
going in largely, as the phrase is, for cooling 
draughts and dishes, of which their attendant of- 


fered them a very long list. After dinner they 
went out and slowly walked about the neighboring 
streets. The early dusk of waning summer was 
coming on, but the heat was still very great. The 
pavements were hot even to the stout boot soles of 
the British travellers, and the trees along the curb- 


stone emitted strange exotic odors. The young 











108 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


men wandered through the adjoining square—that 

queer place without palings, and with marble walks 
arranged in black and white lozenges. There were 
a great many benches, crowded with shabby-look- 
ing people, and the travellers remarked, very 
justly, that it was not much like Belgrave Square. 
On one side was an enormous hotel, lifting up into 
the hot darkness an immense array of open, brightly 
lighted windows. At the base of this populous 
structure was an eternal jangle of horse-cars, and 
all round it, in the upper dusk, was a sinister hum 
of mosquitoes. The ground-floor of the hotel 
seemed to be a huge transparent cage, flinging a 
wide glare of gaslight into the street, of which it 
formed a sort of public adjunct, absorbing and 
emitting the passers-by promiscuously. The young 
Englishmen went in with every one else, from curi- 
osity, and saw a couple of hundred men sitting on 
divans along a great marble-paved corridor, with 
their legs stretched out, together with several dozen 
more standing in a queue, as at the ticket-office of 
a railway ‘station, before a brilliantly illuminated 
counter of vast extent. These latter persons, who 
carried portmanteaus in their hand, had a dejected, 
exhausted look; their garments were not very fresh, 
and they seemed to be rendering some mysterious 
tribute to a magnificent young man with a waxed 
mustache, and a shirt-front adorned with diamond 
buttons, who every now and then dropped an absent 


AN INTERNATIONAL” EPISODE tog 


glance over their multitudinous patience. They 
were American citizens doing homage to a hotel 
clerk. 

“I’m glad he didn’t tell us to go there,” said one 
of our Englishmen, alluding to their friend on the 
steamer, who had told them so many things. They 
walked up Fifth Avenue, where, for instance, he 
had told them that all the first families lived. But 
the first families were out of town, and our young 
travellers had only the satisfaction of seeing some 
of the second—or, perhaps, even the third—taking 
the evening air upon balconies and high flights of 
door-steps, in the streets which radiate from the 
more ornamental thoroughfare. They went a little 
way down one of these side streets, and they saw 
young ladies in white dresses—charming-looking 
persons—seated in graceful attitudes on the choco- 
late-colored steps. In one or two places these young 
ladies were conversing across the street with other 
young ladies seated in similar postures and costumes 
in front of the opposite houses, and in the warm 
night air their colloquial tones sounded strange in the 
ears of the young Englishmen. One of our friends, 
nevertheless—the younger one—intimated that he 
felt a disposition to interrupt a few of these soft 
familiarities; but his companion observed, perti- 
nently enough, that he had better be careful. “We 
must not begin with making mistakes,” said his com- 
panion. 


110 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“But he told us, you know—he told us,” urged 
the young man, alluding again to the friend on the 
steamer. 

“Never mind what he told us!’ answered his 
comrade, who, if he had greater talents, was also 
apparently more of a moralist. 

By bedtime—in their impatience to taste of a 
terrestrial couch again, our seafarers went to bed 
early—it was still insufferably hot, and the buzz of 
the mosquitoes at the open windows might have 
passed for an audible crepitation of the tempera- 
ture. “We can’t stand this, you know,” the young 
Englishmen said to each other; and they tossed 
about all night more boisterously than they had 
tossed upon the Atlantic billows. On the morrow 
their first thought was that they would re-embark 
that day for England; and then it occurred to them 
that they might find an asylum nearer at hand. The 
cave of A®olus became their ideal of comfort, and 
they wondered where the Americans went when they 
wished to cool off. They had not the least idea, and 
they determined to apply for information to Mr. 
J. L. Westgate. This was the name inscribed in a 
bold hand on the back of a letter carefully pre- 
served in the pocket-book of our junior traveller. 
Beneath the address, in the left-hand corner of the 
envelope, were the words, “Introducing Lord Lam- 
beth and Percy Beaumont, Esq.” The letter had 
been given to the two Englishmen by a good friend 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 111 


of theirs in London, who had been in America two 
years previously, and had singled out Mr. J. L. 
Westgate from the many friends he had left there 
as the consignee, as it were, of his compatriots. 
“He is a capital fellow,” the Englishman in London 
had said, “and he has got an awfully pretty wife. 
He’s tremendously hospitable—he will do every- 
thing in the world for you; and as he knows every 
one over there, it is quite needless I should give you 
any other introduction. He will make you see every 
one; trust to him for putting you into circulation. 
He has got a tremendously pretty wife.” It was 
natural that in the hour of tribulation Lord Lam- 
beth and Mr. Percy Beaumont should have bethought 
themselves of a gentleman whose attractions had 
been thus vividly depicted—all the more so that he 
lived in Fifth Avenue, and that Fifth Avenue, as 
they had ascertained the night before, was con- 
tiguous to their hotel. “Ten to one he'll be out of 
town,” said Percy Beaumont; “but we can at least 
find out where he has gone, and we can immediately 
start in pursuit. He can’t possibly have gone to a 
hotter place, you know.” . 

“Oh, there’s only one hotter place,” said Lord 
Lambeth, “and I hope he hasn’t gone there.” 

They strolled along the shady side of the street 
to the number indicated upon the precious letter. 
The house presented an imposing chocolate-colored 
expanse, relieved by facings and window cornices 


1124 AN INTERNATIONAL EFISODE 


of florid sculpture, and by a couple of dusty rose- 
trees which clambered over the balconies and the 
portico. This last-mentioned feature was ap- 
proached by a monumental flight of steps. 

“Rather better than a London house,” said Lord 
Lambeth, looking down from this altitude, after 
they had rung the bell. 

“Tt depends upon what London house you mean,” 
replied his companion. “You have a tremendous 
chance to get wet between the house door and your 
Carnage. 

“Well,” said Lord Lambeth, glancing at the 
burning heavens, “I ‘guess’ it doesn’t rain so much 
here 

The door was opened by a long negro in a white 
jacket, who grinned familiarly when Lord Lambeth 
asked for Mr. Westgate. 

“He ain’t at home, sah; he’s down-town at his 
o ficer” . 

“Oh, at his office?” said the visitor. “And when 
will he be at home?” 

“Well, sah, when he goes out dis way in de 
mo’ning, he ain’t liable to come home all day.” 

This was discouraging; but the address of Mr. 
Westgate’s office was freely imparted by the intel- 
ligent black, and was taken down by Percy Beau- 
mont in his pocket-book. The two gentlemen then 
returned, languidly, to their hotel, and sent for a 
hackney-coach, and in this commodious vehicle they 


/ AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 113 


olled comfortably down-town. They measured the 
vhole length of Broadway again, and found it a 
ath of fire; and then, deflecting to the left, they 
vere deposited by their conductor before a fresh, 
ight, ornamental structure, ten stories highs inva 
street crowded with keen-faced, light-limbed young 
men, who were running about very quickly, and 
stopping each other eagerly at corners and in door- 
ways. Passing into this brilliant building, they 
vere introduced by one of the keen-faced young 
A ae was a charming fellow, in wonderful 
‘ream-colored garments and a hat with a blue rib- 
»on, who had evidently perceived them to be aliens 
ind helpless—to a very snug hydraulic elevator, in 
which they took their place with many other per- 
sons, and which, shooting upward in its vertical 
socket, presently projected them into the seventh 
10rizontal compartment of the edifice. Here, after 
orief delay, they found themselves face to face with 
he friend of their friend in London. His office 
vas composed of several different rooms, and they 
vaited very silently in one of them after they had 
sent in their letter and their cards. The letter was 
1ot one which it would take Mr. Westgate very long 
o read, but he came out to speak to them more in- 
tantly than they could have expected; he had evi- 
ently jumped up from his work. He was a tall, 
ean personage, and was dressed all in fresh white 
inen; he had a thin, sharp, familiar face, with an 








114 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


expression that was at one and the same time socia-| 
ble and business-like, a quick, intelligent eye, and a 
large brown mustache, which concealed his mouth} 
and made his chin beneath it look small. Lord 
Lambeth thought he looked tremendously clever. 
“How do you do, Lord Lambeth—how do you 
do, sir?” he said, holding the open letter in his 
hand. “I’m very glad to see you; I hope you’re very 
well. You had better come in here; I think it’s 
cooler,’ and he led the way into another room, 
where there were law-books and papers, and win- 
dows wide open beneath striped awning. Just op- 
posite one of the windows, on a line with his eyes, 
Lord Lambeth observed the weather-vane of a 
church steeple. The uproar of the street sounded 
infinitely far below, and Lord Lambeth felt very 
high in the air. “I say it’s cooler,” pursued their! 
host, “but everything is relative, How do you stand 
the ‘heat ?”’ | 
“T can’t say we like it,” said Lord Lambeth ; “but 
Beaumont likes it better than I.” | 
“Well, it won’t last,’ Mr. Westgate very cheer- 
fully declared; “nothing unpleasant lasts over here. 
It was very hot when Captain Littledale was here; 
he did nothing but drink sherry-cobblers. He ex- 
presses some doubt in his letter whether I will re- 
member him—as if I didn’t remember making six 
sherry-cobblers for him one day in about twenty 

















AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 115 


minutes. I hope you left him well, two years hav- 
ing elapsed since then.” 

“Oh yes, he’s all right,’’ said Lord Lambeth. 

“T am always very glad to see your countrymen,” 
Mr. Westgate pursued. “I thought it would be time 
some of you should be coming along. A friend of 
mine was saying to me only a day or two ago, ‘It’s 
time for the watermelons and the Englishmen.’ ” 

“The Englishmen and the watermelons just now 
are about the same thing,’ Percy Beaumont said, 
wiping his dripping forehead. 

“Ah, well, we'll put you on ice, as we do the 
melons. You must go down to Newport.” 

“We'll go anywhere,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“Yes, you want to go to Newport; that’s what 
you want to do,’ Mr. Westgate affirmed. “But let’s 
see—when did you get here?” 

“Only yesterday,” said Percy Beaumont. 

“Ah, yes, by the Russia. Where are you stay- 
ing?” 

“At the Hanover, I think they call it.” 

“Pretty comfortable?’ inquired Mr. Westgate. 

“Tt seems a capital place, but I can’t say we like 
the gnats,” said Lord Lambeth. 

Mr. Westgate stared and laughed. “Oh no, of 
course you don’t like the gnats. We shall expect you 
to like a good many things over here, but we sha’n’t 
insist upon your liking the gnats; though certainly 


116 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


you'll admit that, as gnats, they are fine, eh? But 
you oughtn’t to remain in the city.” 

“So we think,” said Lord Lambeth, - “Ifi-you 
would kindly suggest something is 

“Suggest something, my dear sir?” and Mr. West- 
gate looked at him, narrowing his eyelids. “Open 
your mouth and shut your eyes! Leave it to me, 
and I’ll put you through. It’s a matter of national 
pride with me that all Englishmen should have a 
good time; and as I have had considerable practice, 
I have learned to minister to their wants. I find 
they generally want the right thing. So just please 
to consider yourselves my property; and if any one 
should try to appropriate you, please to say, “Hands 
off; too late for the market.’ But let’s see,” con- 
tinued the American, in his slow, humorous voice, 
with a distinctness of utterance which appeared to 
his visitors to be a part of a humorous intention—a 
strangely leisurely speculative voice for a man evi- 
dently so busy and, as they felt, so professional— 
“let’s see; are you going to make something of a 
stay, Lord Lambeth?” - 

“Oh dear no,” said the young Englishman; “my 
cousin was coming over on some business, so I just 
came across, at an hour’s notice, for the lark,” 

“Is it your first visit to the United States?” 

ToD earuves. 4 

“T was obliged to come on some business,” said 
Percy Beaumont, “and I brought Lambeth along.” 





AEV PIN LE RINATIONAT EPISODE f17 


“And you have been here before, sir?” 

“Never—never.”’ 

“I thought, from your referring to business 
said Mr. Westgate. 

“Oh, you see I’m by way of being a barrister,” 
Percy Beaumont answered. “I know some people 
that think of bringing a suit against one of your 
railways, and they asked me to come over and take 
measures accordingly.” 

Mr. Westgate gave one of his slow, keen looks 
again. “‘What’s your railroad?” he asked. 

“The Tennessee Central.” 

The American tilted back his chair a little, and 
poised it an instant. “Well, I’m sorry you want to 
attack one of our institutions,’ he said, smiling. 
“But I guess you had better enjoy yourself first!” 

“T’m certainly rather afraid I can’t work in this 
weather,” the young barrister confessed. 

“Leave that to the natives,” said Mr. Westgate. 
‘Leave the Tennessee Central to me, Mr. Beaumont. 
Some day we'll talk it over, and I guess I can make 
it square. But I didn’t know you Englishmen ever 
did any work, in the upper classes.” 

“Oh, we do a lot of work; don’t we, Lambeth?” 
asked Percy Beaumont. 

“T must certainly be at home by the roth of Sep- 
tember,” said the younger Englishman, irrelevantly 
but gently. 


+” 





_ 


6° AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“For the shooting, eh? or is it the hunting, or the 
fishing?” inquired his entertainer. 

“Oh, I must be in Scotland,” said Lord Lambeth, 
blushing a little. 

“Well, then,” rejoined Mr. Westgate, “you had 
better amuse yourself first, also. You must go down 
and see Mrs. Westgate.” 

“We should be so happy, if you would kindly 
tell us the train,” said Percy Beaumont. 

“It isn’t a train—it’s a boat.” 

“Oh, I see. And what is the name of—a—the— 
a—town?” 

“Tt isn’t a town,” said Mr. Westgate, laughing. 
“It’s a—well, what shall I call it? It’s a watering- 
place. In short, it’s Newport. You'll see what it 
is. It’s cool; that’s the principal thing. You will 
greatly oblige me by going down there and putting 
yourself into the hands of Mrs. Westgate. It isn’t 
perhaps for me to say it, but you couldn’t be in 
better hands. Also in those of her sister, who is 
staying with her. She is very fond of Englishmen. 
She thinks there is nothing like them.” 

“Mrs. Westgate or—a—her sister?’ asked 
Percy Beaumont, modestly, yet in the tone of an 
inquiring traveller. 

“Oh, I mean my wife,” said Mr. Westgate. “I 
don’t suppose my sister-in-law knows much about 
them. She has always led a very quiet life; she has 
lived in Boston.” 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 119 


Percy Beaumont listened with interest. “That, I 
believe,” he said, “is the most—a— intellectual 
town?” 

“T believe it is very intellectual. I don’t go there 
much,” responded his host. 

“I say, we ought to go there,” said Lord Lam- 
beth to his companion. 

“Oh, Lord Lambeth, wait till the great heat is 
over,’ Mr. Westgate interposed. ‘Boston in this 
weather would be very trying; it’s not the tempera- 
ture for intellectual exertion. At Boston, you know, 
you have to pass an examination at the city limits; 
and when you come away they give you a kind of 
Geoteces: 

Lord Lambeth stared, blushing a little; and Percy 
Beaumont stared a little also—but only with his 
fine natural complexion—glancing aside after a 
moment to see that his companion was not looking 
too credulous; sfor hes hadsheardvay creat dealeor 
American humor. “I dare say it is very Jolly,” 
said the younger gentleman. 

“T dare say it is,’ said Mr. Westgate. “Only I 
must impress upon you that at present—to-morrow 
morning, at an early hour—you will be expected at 
Newport. We have a house there; half the people 
of New York go there for the summer. I am not 
sure that at this very moment my wife can take you 
in; she has got a lot of people staying with her; I 
don’t know who they all are; only she may have no 


120 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


room. But you can begin with the hotel, and mean- 
while you can live at my house. In that way— 
simply sleeping at the hotel—you will find it toler- 
able. For the rest, you must make yourself at home 
at my place. You mustn’t be shy, you know; if you 
are only here for a month, that will be a great waste 
of time. Mrs. Westgate won’t neglect you, and you 
had better not try to resist her. I know something 
about that. 1 expect you'll find some pretty girls on 
the premises. I shall write to my wife by this after- 
noon’s mail, and to-morrow morning she and Miss 
Alden will look out for you. Just walk right in and 
make yourself comfortable. Your steamer leaves 
from this part of the city, and I will immediately 
send out and get you a cabin. Then, at half-past 
four o’clock, just call for me here, and I will go 
with you and put you on board. It’s a big boat; 
you might get lost. A few days hence, at the end 
of the week, I will come Hee to Newport, and see 
how you are getting on.’ 

The two young Soe acs inaugurated the nals 
icy of not resisting Mrs. Westgate by submitting, 
with great docility and thankfulness, to her husband. 
He was evidently a very good fellow, and he made 
an impression upon his visitors; his hospitality 
seemed to recommend itself consciously—with a 
friendly wink, as it were—as if it hinted, judi- 
ciously, that you could not possibly make a better 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE tar 


bargain. Lord Lambeth and his cousin left their 
entertainer to his labors and returned to their hotel, 
where they spent three or four hours in their re- 
spective shower-baths. Percy Beaumont had sug- 
gested that they ought to see something of the town; 
but “Oh, d—n the town!” his noble kinsman had 
rejoined. They returned to Mr. Westgate’s office 
in a carriage, with their luggage, very punctually; 
but it must be reluctantly recorded that, this time, 
he kept them waiting so long that they felt them- 
selves missing the steamer, and were deterred only 
by an amiable modesty from dispensing with his 
attendance, and starting on a hasty scramble to the 
wharf. But when at last he appeared, and the car- 
riage plunged into the purlieus of Broadway, they 
jolted, to such good purpose that they reached the 
huge white vessel while the bell for departure was 
still ringing, and the absorption of passengers still 
active. It was indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, 
a big boat, and his leadership in the innumerable and — 
interminable corridors and cabins, with which he 
seemed perfectly acquainted, and of which any one 
and every one appeared to have the entrée, was very 
grateful to the slightly bewildered voyagers. He 
showed them their state-room—a spacious apart- 
ment, embellished with gas-lamps, mirrors en pied, 
and sculptured furiture—and then, long after they 
had been intimately convinced that the steamer was 


122 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISGDE 


in motion and launched upon the unknown stream 
that they were about to navigate, he bade them a, 
sociable farewell. 

“Well, good-bye, Lord Lambeth,” he said; “‘good- 
bye, Mr. Percy Beaumont. I hope you'll have a good 
time. Just let them do what they want with you. 
TP’ll come down by-and-by and look after you.” 

The young Englishmen emerged from their cabin 
and amused themselves with wandering about the 
immense labyrinthine steamer, which struck them as 
an extraordinary mixture of a ship and a hotel. It 
was densely crowded with passengers, the larger 
number of whom appeared to be ladies and very 
young children; and in the big saloons, ornamented 
in white and gold, which followed each other in 
surprising succession, beneath the swinging gas- 
light, and among the small side passages where the 
negro domestics of both sexes assembled with an 
air of philosophic leisure, every one was moving to 
and fro and exvhanging loud and familiar observa- 
tions. Eventually, at the instance of a discriminat- 
ing black, our young men went and had some 
“supper” in a wonderful place arranged like a 
theatre, where, in a gilded gallery, upon which little 
boxes appeared to open, a large orchestra was play- 
ing operatic selections, and, below, people were 
handing about bills of fare, as if they had been pro- 
grammes. All this was sufficiently curious; but the 
agreeable thing, later, was to sit out on one of the 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 123 


great white decks of the steamer, in the warm, 
breezy darkness, and, in the vague starlight, to make 
out the line of low, mysterious coast. The young 
Englishmen tried American cigars—those of Mr. 
Westgate—and talked together as they usually 
talked, with many odd silences, lapses of logic, and 
incongruities of transition, like people who have 
grown old together, and learned to supply each 
other’s missing phrases; or, more especially, like 
people thoroughly conscious of a common point of 
view, so that a style of conversation superficially 
lacking in finish might suffice for reference to a 
fund of associations in the light of which every- 
thing was all right. 

“We really seem to be going out to sea,” Percy 
Beaumont observed. ‘Upon my word, we are going 
back to England. He has shipped us off again. I 
call that ‘real mean.’ ”’ 

“T suppose it’s all right,” said Lord Lambeth. “TI 
want to see those pretty girls at Newport. You 
know he told us the place was an island; and aren’t 
all islands in the sea?” 

“Well,” resumed the elder traveller after a while, 
“if his house is as good as his cigars, we shall do 
very well indeed.” 

“He seems a very good fellow,” said Lord Lam- 
beth, as if this idea just occurred to him. 

“T say, we had better remain at the inn,” rejoined 
his companion, presently. “I don’t think I like the 


ton CAN TIN DERNATIONADLMEPIS@ DE 


way he spoke of his house. I don’t like stopping in 
the house with such a tremendous lot of women.” 

(Oh. don't mind)? said) Word) Wambeth sands 
then they smoked a while in silence. “Fancy his 
thinking we do no work in Ps as !’’ the young 
man resumed. 

“T dare say he didn’t really think so,” said Percy 
Beaumont. 

“Well I guess they don’t know much about Eng- 
land over here!’ declared Lord Lambeth, humor- 
ously. And then there was another long pause. 
“He was devilish civil,” observed the young, noble- 
man. 

“Nothing, certainly, could have been more civil,” 
rejoined his companion. | 
“Littledale said his wife was great fun,” said Lord 

Lambeth. 

“Whose wife—Littledale’s ?” 

“This American’s—Mrs. Westgate. What’s his 
Dame si] ey | 

Beaumont was silent a moment. “What was fun 
to Littledale,”’ he said at last, rather sententiously, 
wioay. be deathitorus:? 

“What do you mean by that?” asked his kinsman. 
“T am as good a man as Littledale.” 

“My dear boy, I hope you won’t begin to flirt,” 
said Percy Beaumont. 

“lidon’t care," trdare)say Wshaniiperiny 

“With a married woman, if she’s bent upon it, it’s 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 125 


all very well,’ Beaumont expounded. “But our 
friend mentioned a young lady—a sister, a sister- 
in-law. For God’s sake, don’t get entangled with 
henis 

“How do you mean entangled?” 

“Depend upon it she will try to hook you.” 

“Oh, bother!’ said Lord Lambeth. 

“American girls are very clever,” urged his com- 
panion. 

“So much the better,” the young man declared. 

“T fancy they are always up to some game of that 
sort,’ Beaumont continued. 

“They can’t be worse than they are in England,” 
said Lord Lambeth, judicially. 

“Ah, but in England,” replied Beaumont, “you 
have got your natural protectors. You have got 
your mother and sisters.” | 

“My mother and sisters ” began the young 
nobleman, with a certain energy. But he stopped 
in time, puffing at his cigar. 

“Your mother spoke to me about it, with tears in 
her eyes,” said Percy Beaumont. “She said she felt 
very nervous. I promised to keep you out of mis- 
chiet 

“You had better take care of yourself,” said the 
object of maternal and ducal solicitude. 

“Ah,” rejoined the young barrister, “I haven't 
the expectation of a hundred thousand a year, not 
to mention other attractions.” 





76 AN=INTERNATIONALPEPISODE 


“Well,” said Lord Lambeth, “don’t cry out be- 
fore you’re hurt!” 

It was certainly very much cooler at Newport, 
where our travellers found themselves assigned to 
a couple of diminutive bedrooms in a_ far-away 
angle of an immense hotel. They had gone ashore 
in the early summer twilight, and had very promptly 
put themselves to bed; thanks to which circum- 
stance, and to their having, during the previous 
hours in their commodious cabin slept the sleep of 
youth and health, they began to feel, towards eleven 
o'clock, very alert and inquisitive. They looked out 
of their windows across a*row of small green fields, 
bordered with low stone walls of rude construction, 
and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue 
sky, and flecked now and then with scintillating 
patches of foam. A strong, fresh breeze came in 
through the curtainless casements, and prompted 
our young men to observe generally that it didn’t 
seem half a bad climate. They made other observa- 
tions after they had emerged from their rooms in 
pursuit of breakfast—a meal of which they partook 
in a huge bare hall, where a hundred negroes in 
white jackets were shuffling about upon an uncar- 
peted floor; where the flies were superabundant, and 
the tables and dishes covered over with a strange, 
voluminous integument of coarse blue gauze; and 
where several little boys and girls, who had risen 
late, were seated in fastidious solitude at the morn- 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 127 


ing repast. These young persons had not the morn- 
ing paper before them, but they were engaged in 
languid perusal of the bill of fare. 

The latter document was a great puzzle to our 
friends, who, on reflecting that its bewildering cate- 
gories had relation to breakfast alone, had an uneasy 
prevision of an encyclopedic dinner list. They 
found a great deal of entertainment at the hotel, an 
enormous wooden structure, for the erection of 
which it seemed to them that the virgin forests of 
the West must have been terribly deflowered. It 
was perforated from end to end with immense bare 
corridors, through which a strong draught was 
blowing—bearing along wonderful figures of ladies 
in white morning-dresses and clouds of valenciennes 
lace, who seemed to float down the long vistas with 
expanded furbelows like angels spreading their 
wings. In front was a gigantic veranda, upon which 
an army might have encamped—a vast wooden ter- 
race, with a roof as lofty as the nave of a cathedral. 
Here our young Englishmen enjoyed, as they sup- 
posed, a glimpse of American society, which was 
distributed over the measureless expanse in a vari- 
ety of sedentary attitudes, and appeared to consist 
largely of pretty young girls, dressed as if for a 
féte champétre, swaying to and fro in rocking chairs, 
fanning themselves with large straw fans, and en- 
joying an enviable exemption from social cares. 
Lord Lambeth had a theory, which it might be in- 


728 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


teresting to trace to its origin, that it would be not 
only agreeable, but easily possible, to enter into rela- 
tions with one of these young ladies; and his com- 
panion (as he had done a couple of days before) 
found occasion to check the young nobleman’s col- 
loquial impulses. 

“You had better take care,” said Percy Beaumont, © 
“or you will have an offended father or brother 
pulling out a bowie-knife.”’ 

“T assure you it is all right,’ Lord Lambeth re- 
plied. “You know the Americans come to these big 
hotels to make acquaintances.” 

“T know nothing about it, and neither do you,” 
said his kinsman, who, like a clever man, had begun 
to perceive that the observation of American 
society demanded a readjustment of one’s standard. 

“Hang it, then, let’s find out!’ cried Lord Lam- 
beth, with some impatience. “You know I don’t 
want to miss anything.” 

“We will find out,” said Percy Beaumont, very 
reasonably. “We will go and see Mrs. Westgate, 
and make all the proper inquiries.” 

And so the two inquiring Englishmen, who had 
this lady’s address inscribed in her husband’s hand 
upon a card, descended from the veranda of the 
big hotel and took their way, according to direction, 
along a large, straight road, past a series of fresh- 
looking villas embosomed in shrubs and flowers, and 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE § 129 


enclosed in an ingenious variety of wooden palings. 
The morning was brilliant and cool, the villas were 
smart and snug, and the walk of the young travel- 
lers was very entertaining. Everything looked as if 
it had received a coat of fresh paint the day before 
—the red roofs, the green shutters, the clean, bright 
browns and buffs of the house fronts. The flower 
beds on the little lawns seemed to sparkle in the 
radiant air, and the gravel in the short carriage 
sweeps to flash and twinkle. Along the road came 
a hundred little basket-phaetons, in which, almost 
always, a couple of ladies were sitting—ladies in 
white dresses and long white gloves, holding the 
reins and looking at the two Englishmen—whose 
nationality was not elusive—through thick blue veils 
tied tightly about their faces, as if to guard their 
complexions. At last the young men came within 
sight of the sea again, and then, having interrogated 
a gardener over the paling of a villa, they turned 
into an open gate. Here they found themselves face 
to face with the ocean and with a very picturesque 
structure, resembling a magnified chalet, which was 
perched upon a green embankment just above it. 
The house had a veranda of extraordinary width 
all around it, and a great many doors and windows 
standing open to the veranda. These various aper- 
tures had, in common, such an accessible, hospitable 
air, such a breezy flutter within of light curtains, 
such expansive thresholds and reassuring interiors, 


130 JAN INTE RNATIONAT SPLS@©DE 


that our friends hardly knew which was the regular 
entrance, and, after hesitating a moment, presented 
themselves at one of the windows. The room within 
was dark, but ina moment a graceful figure vaguely 
shaped itself in the rich-looking gloom, and a lady 
came to. meet them. Then they saw that she had 
been seated at a table writing, and that she had 
heard them and had got up. She stepped out into 
the light; she wore a frank, charming smile, with 
which she held out her hand to Percy Beaumont. 
“Oh, you must be Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beau- 
mont,” she said. “I have heard from my husband 
that you would come. I am extremely glad to see 
you.” And she shook hands with each of her visit- 
ors. Her visitors were a little shy, but they had very 
good manners; they responded with smiles and ex- 
clamations, and they apologized for not knowing 
the front door. The lady rejoined, with vivacity, 
that when she wanted to see people very much she 
did not insist upon these distinctions, and that Mr. 
Westgate had written to her of his English friends 
in terms that made her really anxious. ‘He said 
you were so terribly prostrated,’ said Mrs. West- 
gate. ) 
ZOhy, you, mean «byipthemheatr’; replied wPercy, 
Beaumont. “We were rather knocked up, but we 
feel wonderfully better. We had such a jolly—a— 
voyage down here. It’s so very good of you to 
mind.” 


ANT INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 131 


5] 


“Yes, it’s so very kind of you,” murmured Lord 
Lambeth. 

Mrs. Westgate stood smiling; she was extremely 
pretty. “Well, I did mind,” she said; “and I thought 
of sending for you this morning to the Ocean 
House. I am very glad you are better, and I am 
charmed you have arrived. You must come round 
to the other side of the piazza.” And she led the 
way, with a light, smooth step, looking back at the 
young men and smiling. 

The other side of the piazza was, as Lord Lam- 
beth presently remarked, a very jolly place. It was 
of the most liberal proportions, and with its awn- 
ings, its fanciful chairs, its cushions and rugs, its 
view of the ocean, close at hand, tumbling along the 
base of the low cliffs whose level tops intervened 
in lawn-like smoothness, it formed a charming com- 
plement to the drawing-room. As such it was in 
course of use at the present moment; it was occu- 
pied by a social circle. There were several ladies 
and two or three gentlemen, to whom Mrs. West- 
gate proceded to introduce the distinguished 
strangers. She mentioned a great many names very 
freely and distinctly; the young Englishmen, shuf- 
fling about and bowing, were rather bewildered. 
But at last they were provided with chairs—low, 
wicker chairs, gilded, and tied with a great many 
ribbons—and one of the ladies (a very young per- 
son, with a little snub-nose and several dimples) 


132 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


offered Percy Beaumont a fan. The fan was also 
adorned with pink love-knots; but Percy Beaumont 
declined it, although he was very hot. Presently, 
however, it became cooler; the breeze from the sea 
was delicious, the view was charming, and the people 
sitting there looked exceedingly fresh and comfort- 
able. Several of the ladies seemed to be young girls, 
and the gentlemen were slim, fair youths, such as 
our friends had seen the day before in New York. 
The ladies were working upon bands of tapestry, 
and one of the young men had an open book in his 
lap. Beaumont afterwards learned from one of the 
ladies that this young man had been reading aloud; 
that he was from Boston, and was very fond of 
reading aloud. Beaumont said it was a great pity 
that they had interrupted him; he should like so 
much (from all he had heard) to hear a Bostonian 
read. Couldn’t the young man be induced to go on? 

“Oh no,” said his informant, very freely; “he 
wouldn’t be able to get the young ladies to attend to 
him now.” 

There was something very friendly, Beaumont 
perceived,.in the attitude of the company; they 
looked at the young Englishmen with an air of ani- 
mated sympathy and interest; they smiled, brightly 
and unanimously, at everything either of the visitors 
said. Lord Lambeth and his companion felt that 
they were being made very welcome. Mrs. West- 
gate seated herself between them, and, talking a great 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 133 


deal to each, they had occasion to observe that she 
was as pretty as their friend Littledale had prom- 
ised. She was thirty years old, with the eyes and 
the smile of a girl of seventeen, and she was ex- 
tremely light and graceful—elegant, exquisite. Mrs. 
Westgate was extremely spontaneous. She was very 
frank and demonstrative, and appeared always— 
while she looked at you delightedly with her beau- 
‘tiful young eyes—to be making sudden confessions 
and concessions after momentary hesitations. 

“We shall expect to see a great deal of you,” she 
said to Lord Lambeth, with a kind of joyous ear- 
nestness. “We are very fond of Englishmen here— 
that is, there are a great many we have been fond 
of. After a day or two you must come and stay 
with us; we hope you will stay a long time. New- 
port’s a very nice place when you come really to 
know it—when you know plenty of people. Of 
course you and Mr. Beaumont will have no difficulty 
about that. Englishmen are very well received 
here; there are almost always two or three of them 
about. I think they always like it, and I must say I 
should think they would. They receive ever so much 
attention. I must say I think they sometimes get 
spoiled; but I am sure you and Mr. Beaumont are 
proof against that. 

“My husband tells me you are a friend of Captain 
Littledale. He was such a charming man: he made 
himself most agreeable here, and I am sure I wonder 





14 eANGINTERNATIONALZEPISODE 


he didn’t stay. It couldn’t have been pleasanter for ; 
him in his own country, though, I suppose, it is | 
very pleasant in England—for English people. I) 
don’t know myself; I have been there very little. | 
I have been a great deal abroad, but I am always on 
the Continent. I must say I am extremely fond of | 
Paris; you know we Americans always are; we go: 
there when we die. Did you ever hear that before? 
That was said by a great wit—I mean the good . 
Americans; but we are all good; you'll see that for : 
yourself. 

“All I know of England is London, and all 1 
know of London is that place on that little corner, . 
you know, where you buy jackets—jackets with that | 
coarse braid and those big buttons. They make | 
very good jackets in London; I will do you the jus-_ 
tice to say that. And some people like the hats; but © 
about the hats I was always a heretic; I always got 
my hats in Paris. You can’t wear an English hat 
—at least, I never could—unless you dress your hair 
al Anglaise; and I must say that is a talent I never 
possessed. In Paris they will make things to suit 
your peculiarities; but in England I think you like © 
much more to have—how shall I say it ?—one thing 
for everybody. I mean as regards dress. I don’t 
know about other things; but I have always sup- 
posed that in other things everything was different. 
I mean according to the people—according to the 
classes, and all that. I am afraid you will think 








AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 13s 


that I don’t take a very favorable view; but you 
know you can’t take a very favorable view in Dover 
Street in the month of November. That has always 
been my fate. 

“Do you know Jones’s Hotel, in maven pereere 
~That’s all I know of England. Of course every one 
admits that the English hotels are your weak point. 
There was always the most frightful fog; I couldn’t 
see to try my things on. When I got over to Amer- 
ica—into the light—I usually found they were twice 
too big. The next time I mean to go in the season; 
I think I shall go next year. I want very much to 
take my sister; she has never been to England. I 
don’t know whether you know what I mean by say- 
ing that the Englishmen who come here sometimes 
get spoiled. I mean that they take things as a 
‘matter of course—things that are done for them. 
Now; naturally, they are only a matter of course 
when the Englishmen are very nice. But, of course, 
they are almost always very nice. Of course this 
‘isn’t nearly such an interesting country as England; 
there are not nearly so many things to see, and we 
haven't your country life. I have never seen any- 
thing of your country life; when I am in Europe I 
am always on the Continent. But I have heard a 
great deal about it; I know that when you are among 
yourselves in the country you have the most beauti- 
ful time. Of course we have nothing of that sort; 
we have nothing on that scale. 


136 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“T don’t apologize, Lord Lambeth; some Ameri- 
cans are always apologizing; you must have noticed 
that. We have the reputation of always boasting 
and bragging and waving the American flag; but I 
must say that what strikes me is that we are per- 
petually making excuses and trying to smooth things 
over. The American flag has quite gone out of 
fashion; it’s very carefully folded up like an old 
table-cloth. Why should we apologize? The Eng- 
lish never apologize—do they? No; I must say I 
never apologize. You must take us as we come— 
with all our imperfections on our heads. Of course 
we haven’t your country life, and your old ruins, 
and your great estates, and your leisure class, and all 
that. But if we haven’t, I should think you might 
find it a pleasant change—I think any country is 
pleasant where they have pleasant manners. 

“Captain Littledale told me he had never seen such 
pleasant manners as at Newport, and he had been a 
great deal in European society. Hadn’t he been in 
the diplomatic service? He told me the dream of 
his life was to get appointed to a diplomatic post at 
Washington. But he doesn’t seem to have succeeded. 
I suppose that in England promotion—and all that 
sort of thing—is fearfully slow. With us, you 
know, it’s a great deal too fast. You see, I admit 
our drawbacks. But I must confess I think New- 
port is an ideal place. I don’t know anything like it 
anywhere. Captain Littledale told me he didn’t 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE $137 


know anything like it anywhere. It’s entirely dif- 
ferent from most watering-places; it’s a most charm- 
ing life. I must say I think that when one goes to 
a foreign country one ought to enjoy the differences. 
Of course there are differences, otherwise what did 
one come abroad for? Look for your pleasure in 
the differences, Lord Lambeth; that’s the way to do 
it; and then I am sure you will find American so- 
ciety—at least, Newport society—most charming 
and interesting. I wish very much my husband 
were here; but he’s dreadfully confined to New 
York. I suppose you think that is very strange— 
fora gentleman. But you see we haven’t any leisure 
| Welass.’: 
| Mrs. Westgate’s discourse, delivered in a soft, 
sweet voice, flowed on like a miniature torrent, and 
was interrupted by a hundred little smiles, glances, 
and gestures, which might have figured the irregu- 
larities and obstructions of such a stream. Lord 
_Lambeth listened to her with, it must be confessed, 
a rather ineffectual attention, although he indulged 
| in a good many little murmurs and ejaculations of 
assent and deprecation. He had no great faculty 
| for apprehending generalizations. There were some 
three or four indeed which, in the play of his own 
| intelligence, he had originated, and which had seemed 
convenient at the moment; but at the present time 
| he could hardly have been said to follow Mrs. West- 
'gate as she darted gracefully about in the sea of 


138 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


speculation. Fortunately, she asked for no special re- 
joinder, for she looked about at the rest of the com- 
pany as well, and smiled at Percy Beaumont, on the 
other side of her, as if he, too, must understand her 
and agree with her. He was rather more successful 
than his companion; for besides being, as we know, 
cleverer, his attention was not vaguely distracted by 
close scrutiny to a remarkably interesting young girl 
with dark hair. and blue eyes. This was the case 
with Lord Lambeth, to whom it occurred after a 
while that the young girl with blue eyes and dark 
hair was the pretty sister of whom Mrs. Westgate 
had spoken. She presently turned to him with a re- 
mark which established her identity. 

“It’s a great pity you couldn’t have brought my 
brother-in-law with you. It’s a great shame he 
should be in New York in these days.” 

“Oh yes! it’s so very hot,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“Tt must be dreadful,” said the young girl. 

“T dare say he is very busy,” Lord Lambeth ob- 
served. 

“The gentlemen in America work too much,” the 
young girl went on. 

“Oh, do they? * I daresay they like it, saidiher 
interlocutor. 

idontdikes tae One mneverseesithenin 

pWontt Tyou,/ really ceasked iliords amber hana! 
shouldn’t have fancied that.” 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 139 


“Have you come to study American manners?” 
asked the young girl. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I just came over for a lark. 
I haven’t got long.’ Here there was a pause, and 
Lord Lambeth began again. “But Mr. Westgate 
will come down here, will he not?’ 
“T certainly hope he will. He must help to enter- 
tain you and Mr. Beaumont.” 
Lord Lambeth looked at her a little with his hand- 
some brown eyes. “Do you suppose he would have 
come down with us if we had urged him?” 

Mr. Westgate’s sister-in-law was silent a moment, 
and then, “I dare say he would,” she answered. 
| “Really!” said the young Englishman. ‘He was 
immensely civil to Beaumont and me,” he added. 

“He.is a dear, good fellow,” the young lady re- 
joined, “and he is a perfect husband. But all Amer- 
icans are that,” she continued, smiling. 
| “Really!” Lord Lambeth exclaimed again, and 
wondered whether all American ladies had such a 
‘passion for generalizing as these two. 
_ He sat there a good while: there was a great deal 
of talk; it was all very friendly and lively and jolly. 
Every one present, sooner or later, said something 
to him, and seemed to make a particular point of 
addressing him’ by name. Two or three other per- 
‘sons came in, and there was a shifting of seats and 
changing of places; the gentlemen all entered into 





140 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


intimate conversation with the two Englishmen, 
made them urgent offers of hospitality, and hoped 
they might frequently be of service to them. They 
were afraid Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont were 
not very comfortable at their hotel; that it was not, 
as one of them said, “so private as those dear little 
English inns of yours.” This last gentleman went 
on to say that unfortunately, as yet, perhaps, privacy 


was not quite so easily obtained in America as might 


be desired; still, he continued, you could generally 
get it by paying for it; in fact, you could get every- 
thing in America nowadays by paying for it. Amer- 
ican life was certainly growing a great deal more 
private; it was growing very much like England. 
Everything at Newport, for instance, was thoroughly 
private; Lord Lambeth would probably be- struck 
with that. It was also represented to the strangers 
that it mattered very little whether their hotel was 
agreeable, as every one would want them to make 
visits; they would stay with other people, and, in 
any case, they would be a great deal at Mrs. West- 


gate’s. They would find that very charming; it 


was the pleasantest house in Newport. It was a 


pity Mr. Westgate was always away; he was a man 
of the highest ability—very acute, very acute. He 
worked like a horse, and he left his wife—well, to 
do about as she liked. He liked her to enjoy herself, — 
and she seemed to know how. She was extremely — 


brilliant, and a splendid talker. Some people pre- 


7 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 141 


ferred her sister; but Miss Alden was very differ- 
ent; she was in a different style altogether. Some 
people even thought her prettier, and, certainly, she 
was not so sharp. She was more in the Boston style; 
she had lived a great deal in Boston, and she was 
very highly educated. Boston girls, it was  pro- 
pounded, were more like English young ladies. 

Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the 
truth of this proposition, for on the company rising 
n compliance with a suggestion from their hostess 
hat they should walk down to the rocks and look 
nt the sea, the young Englishman again found him- 
self, as they strolled across the grass, in proximity 
o Mrs. Westgate’s sister. Though she was but a 
pirl of twenty, she appeared to feel the obligation 
to exert an active hospitality; and this was, per- 
naps, the more to be noticed as she seemed by nature 
2 reserved and retiring person, and had little of her 


k 


sister’s fraternizing quality. She was, perhaps, 
rather too thin, and she was a little pale; but as she 
moved slowly over the grass, with her arms hanging 
at her sides, looking gravely for a moment at the 
ea and then brightly, for all her gravity, at him, 
Lord Lambeth thought her at least as pretty as Mrs. 
Westgate, and reflected that if this was the Boston 
style the Boston style was very charming. He 
thought she looked very clever; he could imagine 
‘hat she was highly educated; but at the same time 
‘the seemed gentle and graceful. For all her clever- 








142 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


ness, however, he felt that she had to think a little’ 
what to say; she didn’t say the first thing that came 
into her head; he had come from a different part of. 
the world and from a different society, and she was: 
trying to adapt her conversation. The others were 
scattering themselves near the rocks; Mrs. Noa 
had charge of Percy Beaumont. | 

“Very jolly place, isn’t it?’ said Lord Lambeth. 
“It’s a very jolly place to sit.” | 

“Very charming,” said the young girl. “I often 
sit here; there are all kinds of cosey corners—as 1f 
they had been made on purpose.” 

“Ah, I suppose you have had some of them 
made,” said the young man. 

Miss Alden looked at him a moment. “Oh no, 
we have had nothing made. It’s pure nature.” 

“T should think you would have a few little 
benches—rustic seats, and that sort of thing. It 
might be so jolly to sit here, you know,” Lord Lam- 
beth went on. 

“T am afraid we haven’t so many of those things 
as you,” said the young girl, thoughtfully. 

“T dare say you go in for pure nature, as you were 
saying. Nature over here must be so grand, you 
know.” And Lord Lambeth looked about him. 

The little coast-line hereabouts was very pretty, 
but it was not at all grand, and Miss Alden ap- 
peared to rise to a perception of this fact. “I am 
afraid it seems to you very rough,” she said. “It’s 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 143 


not like the coast scenery in Kingsley’s novels.” 

“Ah, the novels always overdo it, you know,” 
Lord Lambeth rejoined. “You must not go by the 
novels.” 

They were wandering about a little on the rocks, 
and they stopped and looked down into a narrow 
chasm where the rising tide made a curious bellow- 
ing sound. It was loud enough to prevent their 
hearing each other, and they stood there for some 
moments in silence. The young girl looked at her 
companion, observing him attentively, but covertly, 
as women, even when very young, know how to do. 
Lord Lambeth repaid observation; tall, straight, and 
strong, he was handsome as certain young English- 
men, and certain young Englishmen, almost alone, 
are handsome, with a perfect finish of feature and 
a look of intellectual repose and gentle good-temper 
which seemed somehow to be consequent upon his 
well-cut nose and chin. And to speak of Lord Lam- 
beth’s expression of intellectual repose is not simply 
a civil way of saying that he looked stupid. He 
was evidently not a young man of an irritable imagi- 
nation; he was not, as he would himself have said, 
tremendously clever ; but though there was a kind of 
appealing dulness in his eye, he looked thoroughly 
reasonable and competent, and his appearance pro- 
claimed that to be a nobleman, an athlete, and an 
excellent fellow was a sufficiently brilliant combina- 
tion of qualities. The young girl beside him, it may 


144 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


be attested without further delay, thought him the 
handsomest young man she had ever seen; and Bes- 
sie Alden’s imagination, unlike that of her com- 
panion, was irritable. He, however, was also mak- 
ing up his mind that she was uncommonly pretty: 

“I dare say it’s very gay here—that you have lots 
of balls and parties,’ he said; for, if he was not' 
tremendously clever, he rather prided himself on! 
having, with women, a sufficiency of conversation. 

“Oh yes, there is a great deal going on,” Bessie 
Alden replied. “There are not so many balls, but’ 
there are a good many other things. You will see 
for yourself ; we live rather in the midst of it.” 

“It’s very kind of you to say that. But I thought! 
you Americans were always dancing.” 

“I suppose we dance a good deal; but I have never: 
seen much of it. We don’t do it much, at any rate, 
in summer. And I am sure,” said Bessie Alden, 
“that we don’t have so many balls as you have in 
England.” 

‘Really!’ exclaimed Lord Lambeth. “Ah, in’ 
England it all depends, you know.” 

“You will not think much of our gayeties,” said/ 
the young girl, looking at him with a little mixture: 
of interrogation and decision which was peculiar to 
her. The interrogation seemed earnest and the de-| 
cision seemed arch; but the mixture, at any rate, was: 
charming. “Those things, with us, are much less) 
splendid than in England.” 




















AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 145 


“T fancy that you don’t mean that,” said Lord 
Lambeth, laughing. 

“T assure you I mean everything I say,” the young 
girl declared. “Certainly, from what I have read 
‘about English society, it is very different.” 

“Ah well, you know,” said her companion, “those 
things are often described by fellows who know 
nothing about them. You mustn’t mind what you 
read.” 

| “Oh, I shall mind what I read!’ Bessie Alden 
. rejoined. “When I read Thackeray and George 
| Eliot, how can I help minding them ?” 

“Ah, well, Thackeray and George Eliot,” said 
‘the young nobleman; “I haven’t read much of them.” 
| “Don’t you suppose they know about society?” 
_asked Bessie Alden. 

“Oh, I dare say they know; they were so clever. 
But these fashionable novels,” said Lord Lambeth, 
‘“they are awful rot, you know.” 

_ His companion looked at him a moment with her 
dark blue eyes, and then she looked down in the 
chasm where the water was tumbling about. “Do 
/you mean Mrs. Gore, for instance?” she said, pres- 
ently, raising her eyes. 

_ “Tam afraid I haven’t read that, either,” was the 
‘young man’s rejoinder, laughing a little and blush- 
jing. “I am afraid you'll think I am not very intel- 
‘lectual.” 

“Reading Mrs. Gore is no proof of intellect. But 











146 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


I like reading everything about English life—even 
poor books. I am so curious about it.” 

“Aren’t ladies always curious?” asked the young 
man, jestingly. 

But Bessie Alden appeared to desire to answer 
his question seriously. “I don’t think so—I don’t 
think we are enough so—that we care about many 
things. So it’s all the more of a compliment,” she 
added, “that I should want to know so much about 
England.” 

The logic here seemed a little close ; but Lord Lam- 
beth, made conscious of a compliment, found his 
natural modesty just at hand. “I am sure you 
know a great deal more than I do.” 

“T really think I know a great deal—for a person 
who has never been there.” 

“Have you really never been there?” cried Lord 
Lambeth. “Fancy!” 

“Never—except in imagination,” said the young 
girl. 

“Fancy!” repeated her companion. “But I dare 
say you'll go soon, won’t you?” ; 

“It’s the dream of my life!” said Bessie Alden, 
smiling. 

“But your sister seems to know a tremendous lot 
about London,” Lord Lambeth went on. 

The young girl was silent a moment. ‘‘My sister 
and I are two very different persons,” she presently 
said. ‘She has been a great deal in Europe. She 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 147 


has been in England several times. She has known 
a great many English people.” 

“But you must have known some, too,” said Lord 
Lambeth. 

“T don’t think that I have ever spoken to one be- 
fore. You are the first Englishman that—to my 
knowledge—I have ever talked with.” 

Bessie Alden made this statement with a certain 
gravity—almost, as it seemed to Lord Lambeth, an 
impressiveness. Attempts at impressiveness always 
made him feel awkward, and he now began to laugh 
and swing his stick. “Ah, you would have been sure 
to know!” he said. And then he added, after an in- 
stant, “I’m sorry I am not a better specimen.” 

The young girl looked away; but she smiled, lay- 
ing aside her impressiveness. “You must remember 
that you are only a beginning,” she said. Then she 
retraced her steps, leading the way back to the lawn, 
where they saw Mrs. Westgate come towards them 
with Percy Beaumont still at her side. “Perhaps I 
shall go to England next year,’’ Miss Alden contin- 
ued; “I want to, immensely. My sister is going to 
Europe, and she has asked me to go with her. If 
we go, I shall make her stay as long as possible in 
London.” ) 

“Ah, you must come in July,” said Lord Lambeth. 
“That’s the time when there is most going on.” 

“T don’t think I can wait till July,” the young girl 
rejoined. ‘By the first of May I shall be very im- 


148 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


patient.” They had gone farther, and Mrs. West- 
gate and her companion were near them. “Kitty,” 
said Miss Alden, “I have given out that we are go- 
ing to London next May. So please to conduct your- 
self accordingly.” 

Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat animated— 
even a slightly irritated—air. He was by no means 
so handsome a man as his cousin, although in his 
cousin’s absence he might have passed for a striking 
specimen of the tall, muscular, fair-bearded, clear- 
eyed Englishman. Just now Beaumont’s clear eyes, 
which were small and of a pale gray color, had a 
rather troubled light, and, after glancing at Bessie 
Alden while she spoke, he rested them upon his kins- 
man. Mrs. Westgate meanwhile, with her super- 
fluously pretty gaze, looked at every one alike. 

“You had better wait till the time comes,’ she 
said to her sister. ‘‘Perhaps next May you won’t 
care so much about London. Mr. Beaumont and I,” 
she went on, smiling at her companion, “have had 
a tremendous discussion. We don’t agree about 
anything. It’s perfectly delightful.” 

“Oh, I say, Percy!’ exclaimed Lord Lambeth. 

“I disagree,” said Beaumont, stroking down his 
back hair, ‘even to the point of not thinking it de- 
lightful.”’ 

“Oh, I say!” cried Lord Lambeth again. 

“T don’t see anything delightful in my disagreeing 
with Mrs. Westgate,” said Percy Beaumont. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 149 


“Well, I do!” Mrs. Westgate declared; and she 
turned to her sister. “You know you have to go to 
town. The phaeton is there. You had better take 
Lord Lambeth.” 

At this point Percy Beaumont certainly looked 
straight at his kinsman; he tried to catch his eye. 
‘But Lord Lambeth would not look at him; his own 
eyes were better occupied. “I shall be very happy,” 
cried Bessie Alden. “Iam only going to some shops. 
But I will drive you about and show you the place.” 

“An American woman who respects herself,” said 
Mrs. Westgate, turning to Beaumont with her bright 
expository air, “must buy something every day of 
her life. If she cannot do it herself, she must send 
out some member of her family for the BENE So 
Bessie goes forth to fulfil my mission.’ 

The young girl had walked away, with Lord Lam- 
beth by her side, to whom she was talking still; and 
Percy Beaumont watched them as they passed to- 
wards the house. “She fulfils her own mission,” he 
presently said; “that of being a very attractive young 
lady.” 
|. “T don’t know that I should say very attractive,” 
Mrs. Westgate rejoined. “She is not so much that 
as she is charming, when you really know her. She 
‘is very shy.” 

“Oh, indeed!” said Percy Beaumont. 
_ “Extremely shy,” Mrs. Westgate repeated. “But 
she is a dear, good girl; she is a charming species of 








130 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


a girl. She is not in the least a flirt; that isn’t at all 
her line; she doesn’t know the alphabet of that sort 
of thing. She is very simple; very serious. She has 
lived a great deal in Boston, with another sister of 
mine—the eldest of us—who married a Bostonian. 
She is very cultivated—not at all like me; I am not 
in the least cultivated. She has studied immensely 
and read everything; she is what they call in Boston 
‘thoughtful.’ ”’ 

“A rum sort of girl for Lambeth to get hold of !” 
his lordship’s kinsman privately reflected. 

“T really believe,” Mrs. Westgate continued, “that 
the most charming girl in the world is a Boston 
superstructure upon a New York fonds; or perhaps 
a New York superstructure upon a Boston fonds. 
At any rate, it’s the mixture,” said Mrs. Westgate, 
who continued to give Percy Beaumont a great deal 
of information. 

Lord Lambeth got into a little basket phaeton 
with Bessie Alden, and she drove him down the 
long avenue, whose extent he had measured on foot 
a couple of hours before, into the ancient town, as 
it was called in that part of the world, of New- 
port. The ancient town was a curious affair—a 
collection of fresh-looking little wooden houses, 
painted white, scattered over a hill-side and clustered 
about a long, straight street, paved with enormous 
cobble-stones. There were plenty of shops, a large 
proportion of which appeared to be those of fruit 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 151 


venders, with piles of huge watermelons and pump- 
kins stacked in front of them; and, drawn up before 
the shops, or bumping about on the cobble-stones, 
were innumerable other basket-phaetons freighted 
with ladies of high fashion, who greeted each other 
from vehicle to vehicle, and conversed on the edge 
of the pavement in a manner that struck Lord Lam- 
beth as demonstrative, with a great many “Oh, my 
dears,” and little, quick exclamations and caresses. 
His companion went into seventeen shops—he 
amused himself with counting them—and accumu- 
lated at the bottom of the phaeton a pile of bundles 
that hardly left the young Englishman a place for 
his feet. As she had no groom nor footman, he sat 
in the phaeton to hold the ponies, where, although 
he was not a particularly acute observer, he saw 
much to entertain him—especially the ladies just 
mentioned, who wandered up and down with the ap- 
pearance of a kind of aimless intentness, as if they 
were looking for something to buy, and who, trip- 
ping in and out of their vehicles, displayed remark- 
ably pretty feet. It all seemed to Lord Lambeth 
very odd and bright and gay. Of course, before they 
got back to the villa, he had had a great deal of 
desultory conversation with Bessie Alden. 

The young Englishmen spent the whole of that 
day and the whole of many successive days in what 
the French call the intimité of their new friends. 
They agreed that it was extremely jolly, that they 


152. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


had never known anything more agreeable. It is 
not proposed to narrate minutely the incidents of 
their sojourn on this charming shore; though if it 
were convenient I might present a record of impres- 
sions none the less delectable that they were not ex- 
haustively analyzed. Many of them still linger in 
the minds of our travellers, attended by a train of 
harmonious images—images of brilliant mornings 
on lawns and piazzas that overlooked the sea; of 
innumerable pretty girls; of infinite lounging and 
talking and laughing and flirting and lunching and 
dining; of universal friendliness and frankness; of 
occasions on which they knew every one and every- 
thing, and had an extraordinary sense of ease; of 
drives and rides in the late afternoon over gleam- 
ing beaches, on long sea-roads beneath a sky lighted 
up by marvellous sunsets; of suppers, on the return, 
informal, irregular, agreeable; of evenings at open 
windows or on the perpetual verandas, in the sum- 
mer starlight, above the warm Atlantic. The young 
Englishmen were introduced to everybody, enter- 
tained by everybody, intimate with everybody. At 
the end of three days they had removed their lug- 
gage from the hotel, and gone to stay with Mrs. 
Westgate—a step to which Percy Beaumont at first 
offered some conscientious opposition. I call his 
opposition conscientious, because it was founded 
upon some talk that he had had, on the second day, 
with Bessie Alden. He had indeed had a good deal 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 153 


of talk with her, for she was not literally always in 
conversation with Lord Lambeth. He had medi- 
tated upon Mrs. Westgate’s account of her sister, 
and he discovered for himself that the young lady 
was clever, and appeared to have read a great deal. 
She seemed very nice, though he could not make out 
that, as Mrs. Westgate had said,,she was shy. If 
she was shy, she carried it off very well. 

“Mr. Beaumont,” she had said, “please tell me 
something about Lord Lambeth’s family. How 
would you say it in England—his position?” 

“His position?” Percy Beaumont repeated. 

“His rank, or whatever you call it. Unfortu- 
nately, we haven’t got a ‘peerage,’ like the people 
in Thackeray.” 

“That’s a great pity,” said Beaumont. “You 
would find it-all set forth there so much better than 
I can do it.” 

lie vised peer then 

“Oh yes, he is a peer.”’ 

“And has he any other title than Lord Lambeth?” 

“His title is the Marquis of Lambeth,” said Beau- 
mont; and then he was silent. Bessie Alden ap- 
peared to be looking at him with interest. “He is 
the son of the Duke of Bayswater,” he added, pres- 
ently. 

“The eldest son?” 

“The only son.” 

“And are his parents living?” 


i54 . ANMNTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“Oh yes; if his father were not living he would 
be a duke.” 

“So that when his father dies,’ pursued Bessie 
Alden, with more simplicity than might have been 
expected in a clever girl, “he will become Duke of 
Bayswater ?” 

“Of course,” said Percy Beaumont. “But his 
father is in excellent health.” 

“And his mother ?” 

Beaumont smiled a little. “The duchess is uncom- 
monly robust.” 

“And has he any sisters?” 

“Yes, there are two.” 

“And what are they called?” 

“One of them is married. She is the Countess of 
Pimlico, © ; 

“And the other?’ 

“The other is unmarried; she is plain Lady Julia.” 

Bessie Alden looked at him a moment. “Is she 
very plain?” 

Beaumont began to laugh again. “You would not 
find her so handsome as her brother,” he said; and 
it was after this that he attempted to dissuade the 
heir of the Duke of Bayswater from accepting Mrs. 
Westgate’s invitation. “Depend upon it,” he said, 
“that girl means to try for you.” 

“Tt seems to me you are doing your best to make 
a fool of me,’ the modest young nobleman an- 
swered. 


we Om 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 1ss 


“She has been asking me,” said Beaumont, “all 
about your people and your possessions.” 

“T am sure it is very good of her!’ Lord Lam- 
beth rejoined. 

“Well, then,’ observed his companion, “if you 
go, you go with your eyes open.” 

“D—n my eyes!” exclaimed Lord Lambeth. “Tf 
one is to be a dozen times a day at the house, it is 
a great deal more convenient to sleep there. I am 
sick of travelling up and down this beastly avenue.” 

Since he had determined to go, Percy Beaumont 
would, of course, have been very sorry to allow him 
to go alone; he was a man of conscience, and he re- 
membered his promise to the duchess. It was ob- 
viously the memory of this promise that made him 
say to his companion a couple of days later that he 
rather wondered he should be so fond of that girl. 

“In the first place, how do you know how fond I 
am of her?’ asked Lord Lambeth. “And, in the 
second place, why shouldn’t I be fond of her?” 

“T shouldn’t think she would be in your line.” 

“What do you call my ‘line? You don’t set her 
down as ‘fast?’ ”’ 

“Exactly so. Mrs. Westgate tells me that there is 
no such thing as the ‘fast girl’ in America; that it’s 
an English invention, and that the term has no mean- 
ing here.” 

“All the better. It’s an animal I detest.” 


186) “AN INTERNATIONAL EP Isope 


“You prefer a blue-stocking.”’ 

“Ts that what you call Miss Alden?” 

“Her sister tells me,” said Percy Beaumont, “that 
she is tremendously literary.” 

“T don’t know anything about that. She 1s cer- 
tainly very clever.” 

_ “Well,” said Beaumont, “TI should have supposed 
you would have found that sort of thing awfully 
slow.” 

“In point of fact,’ Lord Lambeth rejoined, “I 
find it uncommonly lively.” 

After this Percy Beaumont held his tongue; but 
on August 1oth he wrote to the Duchess of Bays- 
water. He was, as I have said, a man of conscience, 
and he had a strong, incorruptible sense of the pro- 
prieties of life. His kinsman, meanwhile, was hay- 
ing a great deal of talk with Bessie Alden—on the 
red sea-rocks beyond the lawn; in the course of long 
island rides, with a slow return in the glowing twi- 
light ; on the deep veranda late in the evening. Lord 
Lambeth, who had stayed at many houses, had never 
stayed at a house in which it was possible for a 
young man to converse so frequently with a young 
lady. This young lady no longer applied to Percy 
Beaumont for information concerning his lordship. 
She addressed herself directly to the young noble- 
man. She asked him a great many questions, some 
of which bored him a little; for he took no pleasure 
in talking about himself. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 157° 


‘Lord Lambeth,” said Bessie Alden, “are you a 
hereditary legislator?” 

“Oh, I say!” cried Lord Lambeth, “don’t make 
me call myself such names as that.” ; 

“But you are a member of Parliament,” said the 
young girl. 

“T don’t like the sound of that either.” 

“Don’t you sit in the House of Lords?” Bessie 
Alden went on. 

“Very seldom,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“Ts it an important position?” she asked. 

“Oh dear no,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“T should think it would be very grand,” said 
Bessie Alden, “to possess, simply by an accident of 
birth, the right to make laws for a great nation.” 

“Ah, but one doesn’t make laws. It’s a great 
humbug.” 

“T don’t believe that,” the young girl declared. 
“Tt must be a great privilege, and I should think that 
if one thought of it in the right way—from a high 
point of view—it would be very inspiring.” 

“The less one thinks of it the better,’ Lord Lam- 
beth affirmed. 

“T think it’s tremendous,” said Bessie Alden; and 
on another occasion she asked him if he had any 
tenantry. Hereupon it was that, as I have said, he 
was a little bored. 

“Do you want to buy up their leases?” he asked. 

“Well, have you got any livings?’” she demanded. 





188 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“Oh, I say!” he cried. “Have you got a clergy- 
man that is looking out?” But she made him tell 
her that he had a castle; he confessed to but one. It 
was the place in which he had been born and brought 
up, and, as he had an old-time liking for it, he was 
beguiled into describing it a little, and saying it was 
really very jolly. Bessie Alden listened with great 
interest, and declared that she would give the world 
to see such a place. Whereupon—“It would be 
awfully kind of you to come and stay there,” said 
Lord Lambeth. He took a vague satisfaction in 
the circumstance that Percy Beaumont had not 
heard him make the remark I have just recorded. 

Mr. Westgate all this time had not, as they said 
at Newport, “come on.” His wife more than once 
announced that she expected him on the morrow; but 
on the morrow she wandered about a little, with a 
telegram in her jewelled fingers, declaring it was 
very tiresome that his business detained him in New 
York; that he could only hope the Englishmen were 
having a good time. “I must say,” said Mrs. West- 
gate, “that it is no thanks to him if you are.” And 
she went on to explain, while she continued that 
slow-paced promenade which enabled her well-ad- 
justed skirts to display themelves so advanta- 
geously, that unfortunately in America there was no 
leisure class. It was Lord Lambeth’s theory, freely 
propounded when the young men were together, that 
Percy Beaumont was having a very good time with 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 159 


Mrs. Westgate, and that, under the pretext of meet- 
ing for the purpose of animated discussion, they 
were indulging in practices that imparted a shade 
of hypocrisy to the lady’s regret for her husband’s 
absence. 

“T assure you we are always discussing and dif- 
fering,’ said Percy Beaumont. “She is awfully 
argumentative. American ladies certainly don’t 
mind contradicting you. Upon my word, I don’t 
think I was ever treated so by a woman before. 
She’s so devilish positive.” 

Mrs. Westgate’s positive quality, however, evi- 
dently had its attractions, for Beaumont was con- 
stantly at his hostess’s side. He detached himself 
one day to the extent of going to New York to talk 
over the Tennessee Central with Mr. Westgate; but 
he was absent only forty-eight hours, during which, 
with Mr. Westgate’s assistance, he completely set- 
tled this piece of business. “They certainly do 
things quickly in New York,” he observed to his 
cousin ; and he added that Mr. Westgate had seemed 
very uneasy lest his wife should miss her visitor— 
he had been in such an awful hurry to send him back 
tooner.. 'Um*airaidwyou linever come tip tor an 
American husband, if that’s what the wives expect,” 
he said to Lord Lambeth. 

Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to enjoy much 
longer the entertainment with which an indulgent 
husband had desired to keep her provided. On Au- 


160 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


gust 21st Lord Lambeth received a telegram from 


his mother, requesting him to return immediately to | 


England; his father had been taken ill, and it was | 


his filial duty to come to him. 

The young Englishman was visibly annoyed. 
“What the deuce does it mean?’ he asked of his 
kinsman. “What am I to do?’ 

Percy Beaumont was annoyed as well; he had 
deemed it his duty, as I have narrated, to write to 
the duchess, but he had not expected that this dis- 
tinguished woman would act so promptly upon his 
hint. “It means,” he said, “that your father is laid 
up. I don’t suppose it’s anything serious; but you 
have no option. Take the first steamer; but don’t be 
alarmed.” 

Lord Lambeth made his farewells; but the few 
last words that he exchanged with Bessie Alden are 


y 
' 


the only ones that have a place in our record. “Of 


course I needn’t assure you,” he said, “that if you 
should come to England next year, I expect to be 
the first person that you inform of it.” _ 

Bessie Alden looked at him a little and she smiled. 
“Oh, if we come to London,” she answered, “I 
should think you would hear of it.” 

Percy Beaumont returned with his cousin, and his 
sense of duty compelled him, one windless afternoon, 
in mid-Atlantic, to say to Lord Lambeth that he sus- 
pected that the duchess’s telegram was in part the 
result of something he himself had written to her. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 161 


“T wrote to her—as I explicitly notified you I had 
promised to do—that you were extremely interested 
in a little American girl.” 

Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, and he in- 
dulged for some moments in the simple language of 
indignation. But I have said that he was a reason- 
able young man, and I can give no better proof of it 
than the fact that he remarked to his companion at 
the end of half an hour, “You were quite right, after 
all. Iam very much interested in her. Only, to be 
fair,” he added, “you should have told my mother 
also that she is not—seriously—interested in me.” 

Percy Beaumont gave a little laugh. “There is 
nothing so charming as modesty in a young man in 
your position. That speech is a capital proof that 
you are sweet on her.” 

“She is not interested—she is not!’ Lord Lam- 
beth repeated. 

“My dear fellow, 
very far gone.” 


9 


said his companion, “you are 


Pak (alt 


In point of fact, as Percy Beaumont would have 
said, Mrs. Westgate disembarked on May 18th on 
the British coast. She was accompanied by her sis- 
ter, but she was not attended by any other member 
of her family. To the deprivation of her husband’s 
society Mrs. Westgate was, however, habituated; 
she had made half a dozen journeys to Europe with- 
out him, and she now accounted for his absence, to 
interrogative friends on this side of the Atlantic, by 
allusion to the regrettable but conspicuous fact that 
in America there was no leisure class. The two la- 
dies came up to London and alighted at Jones’s 
Hotel, where Mrs. Westgate, who had made on 
former occasions the most agreeable impression at 
this establishment, received an obsequious greeting. 
Bessie Alden had felt much excited about coming to 
England; she had expected the “associations” would 
be very charming, that it would be an infinite pleas- 
ure to rest her eyes upon the things she had read 
about in the poets and historians. She was very 
fond of the poets and historians, of the picturesque, 

162 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 163 


of the past, of retrospect, of mementos and rever- 
berations of greatness; so that on coming into the 
great English world, where strangeness and famil- 
larity would go hand in hand, she was prepared for 
a multitude of fresh emotions. They began very 
promptly—these tender, fluttering sensations; they 
began with the sight of the beautiful English land- 
scape, whose dark richness was quickened and bright- 
ened by the season; with the carpeted fields and flow- 
ering hedge-rows, as she looked at them from the 
window of the train; with the spires of the rural 
churches peeping above the rook-haunted tree-tops ; 
with the oak-studded parks, the ancient homes, the 
cloudy light, the speech, the manners, the thousand 
differences. Mrs. Westgate’s impressions had, of 
course, much less novelty and keenness, and she 
gave but a wandering attention to her sister’s ejac- 
ulations and rhapsodies. 

“You know my enjoyment of England is not so 
intellectual as Bessie’s,” she said to several of her 
friends in the course of her visit to this country. 
“And yet if it is not intellectual, I can’t, say it is 
physical. I don’t think I can quite say what it is— 
my enjoyment of England.’ When once it was set- 
tled that the two ladies should come abroad and 
should spend a few weeks in England on their way 
to the Continent, they of course exchanged a good 
many allusions to their London acquaintance. 

“Tt will certainly be much nicer having friends 


164 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


there,” Bessie Alden had said one day, as she sat on | 
the sunny deck of the steamer at her sister’s feet, on 
a large blue rug. 

“Whom do you mean by friends?” Mrs. ‘Westgate | 
asked. 

“All those English gentlemen whom you have 
known and entertained. Captain Littledale, for in- 
stance. And Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont,” 
added Bessie Alden. | 

“Do you expect them to give us a very grand re- 
ception?” 

Bessie reflected a moment; she was addicted, as 
we know, to reflection. ‘Well, yes.” 

“My poor, sweet child!” murmured her sister. 

“What have I said that is so silly?” asked Bessie. 

“You are a little too simple; just a little. It 1s 
very becoming, but it pleases people at your ex- 
pense.”’ 

“T am certainly too simple to understand you,” 
said Bessie. 

“Shall I tell you a story?” asked her sister. 

“Tf you would be so good. That is what they do 
to amuse simple people.”’ 

Mrs. Westgate consulted her memory, while her 
companion sat gazing at the shining sea. “Did you 
ever hear of the Duke of Green-Erin?” 

*“‘T think not,” said Bessie. 

“Well, it’s no matter,” her sister went on. 

“Tt’s a proof of my simplicity.” 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 165 


“My story is meant to illustrate that of some other 
people,” said Mrs. Westgate. “The Duke of Green- 
Erin is what they call in England a great swell, and 
some five years ago he came to America. He spent 
most of his time in New York, and in New York he 
spent his days and his nights at the Butterworths’. 
You have heard, at least, of the Butterworths. 
Bien, They did everything in the world for him— 
they turned themselves inside out. They gave him 
a dozen dinner-parties and balls, and were the means 
of his being invited to fifty more. At first he used 
to come into Mrs. Butterworth’s box at the opera 
in a tweed travelling suit ; but some one stopped that. 
At any rate, he had a beautifui time, and they parted 
the best friends in the world. Two years elapse, 
and the Butterworths come abroad and go to Lon- 
don. The first thing they see in all the papers—in 
England those things are in the most prominent 
place—is that the Duke of Green-Erin has arrived in 
town for the season. They wait a little, and then 
Mr. Butterworth—as polite as ever—goes and leaves 
acard. They wait a little more; the visit is not re- 
turned; they wait three weeks—silence de mort— 
the duke gives no sign. The Butterworths see a lot 
of other people, put down the Duke of Green-Erin 
as a rude, ungrateful man, and forget all about him. 
One fine day they go to the Ascot races, and there 
they meet him face to face. He stares a moment, 
and then comes up to Mr. Butterworth, taking some- 


166 “AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


thing from his pocket-book—something which 
proves to be a bank-note. ‘I’m glad to see you, Mr. 
Butterworth,’ he says, ‘so that I can pay you that 
£10 I lost to you in New York. I saw the other day 
you remembered our bet; here are the £10, Mr. But- 
terworth. Good-bye, Mr. Butterworth.’ And off he 
goes, and that’s the last they see of the Duke of 
Green-FErin.” 

“Ts that your story?” asked Bessie Alden. 

“Don’t you think it’s interesting?” her sister re- 
plied. . 

jivdon'tibelieve it.” 

“Ah,” cried Mrs. Westgate, “you are not so sim- 
ple, after all! Believe it or not, as you please; there. 
is no smoke without fire.’’ 

“Ts that the way,’ asked Bessie, after a moment, 
“that you expect your friends to treat you?’ 

“I defy them to treat me very ill, because I shall 
not give them the opportunity. With the best will 
in the world, in that case they can’t be very offen- 
sive.” ‘ 

Bessie Alden was silent a moment. “I don’t see 
what makes you talk that way,” she said. “The 
English are a great people.” 

“Exactly; and that is just the way they have 
grown great—by dropping you when you have 
ceased to be useful. People say they are not clever; 
but I think they are very clever.” 


RNGUNTERNATIONALT EPISODE i167 


“You know you have liked them—all the English- 
men you have seen,” said Bessie. 

“They have liked me,” her sister rejoined; “it 
would be more correct to say that. And, of course, 
one likes that.” 

Bessie Alden resumed for some moments her 
studies in sea-green. “Well,” she said, “whether 
they like me or not, I» mean to like them. And, 
happily,’ she added, “Lord Lambeth does not owe 
me £10.” 

During the first few days after their arrival at 
Jones’s Hotel our charming Americans were much 
occupied with what they would have called looking 
about them. They found occasion to make a large 
number of purchases, and their opportunities for 
conversation were such only as were offered by the 
deferential London shopmen. Bessie Alden, even in 
driving from the station, took an immense fancy to 
the British metropolis, and at the risk of exhibiting 
her as a young woman of vulgar tastes, it must be 
recorded that for a considerable period she desired 
no higher pleasure than to drive about the crowded 
streets in a hansom cab. To her attentive eyes they 
were full of a strange, picturesque life, and it is at 
least beneath the dignity of our historic muse to 
enumerate the trivial objects and incidents which 
this simple young lady from Boston found so enter- 
taining. It may be freely mentioned, however, that 


168 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


whenever, after a round of visits in Bond Street 
and Regent Street, she was about to return with her 
sister to Jones’s Hotel, she made an earnest request 
that they should be driven home by way of West- 
minster Abbey. She had begun by asking whether 
it would not be possible to take in the Tower on the 
way to their lodgings; but it happened that at a 
more primitive stage of her culture Mrs. Westgate 
had paid a visit to this venerable monument, which 
she spoke of ever afterwards vaguely as a dreadful 
disappointment; so that she expressed the liveliest 
disapproval of any attempt to combine historical re- 
searches with the purchase of hair-brushes and note- 
paper. The most she would consent to do in this 
line was to spend half an hour at Madame Tussaud’s, 
where she saw several dusty wax effigies of mem- 
bers of the royal family. She told Bessie that if 
she wished to go to the Tower she must get some 
one else to take her. Bessie expressed hereupon an 
earnest disposition to go alone; but upon this pro- 
posal as well, Mrs. Westgate sprinkled cold water. 

“Remember,” she said, “that you are not in your 
innocent little Boston. It is not a question of walk- 
ing up and down Beacon Street.” Then she went on 
to explain that there were two classes of American * 
girls in Europe—those that walked about alone and 
those that did not. “You happen to belong, my 
dear,” she said to her sister, ‘‘to the class that does 
ra) 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 169 


“Tt is only,” answered Bessie, laughing, “because 
you happen to prevent me.” And she devoted much 
private meditation to this question of effecting a 
visit to the Tower of London. 

Suddenly it seemed as if the problem might be 
solved; the two ladies at Jones’s Hotel received a 
visit from Willie Woodley. Such was the social 
appellation of a young American who had sailed 
from New York a few days after their own de- 
parture, and who, having the privilege of intimacy 
with them in that city, had lost no time, on his ar- 
rival in London, in coming to pay them his respects. 
He had, in fact, gone to see them directly after go- 
‘ing to see his tailor, than which there can be no 
greater exhibition of promptitude on the part of a 
young American who had just alighted at the Char- 
‘ing Cross Hotel. He was a slim, pale youth, of the 
‘most amiable disposition, famous for the skill with 
which he led the “German” in New York. Indeed, 
‘by the young ladies who habitually figured in this 
-Terpsichorean revel he was believed to be “the best 
dancer in the world;” it was in these terms that he 
was always spoken of, and that his identity was in- 
‘dicated. He was the gentlest, softest young man it 
was possible to meet; he was beautifully dressed— 
“in the English style’—and he knew an immense 
deal about London. He had been at Newport dur- 
ing the previous summer, at the time of our young 
Englishmen’s visit, and he took extreme pleasure in_ 





170 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


the society of Bessie Alden, whom he always ad- 
dressed as ‘“‘Miss Bessie.”’ She immediately arranged 
with him, in the presence of her sister, that he should 
conduct her to the scene of Anne Boleyn’s execu- 
tion. | 

“You may do as you please,” said Mrs. Westgate. 
“Only—if you desire the information—it is not the 
custom here for young ladies to knock about Lon- 
don with young men.” 

“Miss Bessie has waltzed with me so often,” ob- 
served Willie Woodley; “she can surely go out with 
me in a hansom!” 

“T consider waltzing,’ said Mrs. Westgate, “the 
most innocent pleasure of our time.” 

“Tt’s a compliment to our time!’ exclaimed the 
young man, with a little laugh in spite of himself. 

“TI don’t see why I should regard what is done 
here,” said Bessie Alden. ‘‘Why should I suffer the 
restrictions of a society of which I enjoy none of 
the privileges?” 

“That’s very good—very good,’ murmured Willie 
Woodley. 

“Oh, go to the Tower, and feel the axe, if you 
like,” said Mrs. Westgate. “I consent to your going 
with Mr. Woodley; but I should not let you go 
with an Englishman.” 

“Miss Bessie wouldn’t care to go with an English- 
man!’ Mr. Woodley declared, with a faint asperity 
that was, perhaps, not unnatural in a young man, 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 171 


who, dressing in the manner that I have indicated, 
and knowing a great deal, as I have said, about Lon- 
don, saw no reason for drawing these sharp distinc- 
tions. He agreed upon a day with Miss Bessie—a 
day of that same week. | 

_ An ingenious mind might, perhaps, trace a con- 
nection between the young girl’s allusion to her des- 
titution of social privileges and a question she asked 
on the morrow, as she sat .with her sister at lunch. 

“Don’t you mean to write to—to any one?” said 
Bessie. 

“T wrote this morning to Captain Littledale,” Mrs. 
Westgate replied. 

“But Mr. Woodley said that Captain Littledale 
had gone to India.” 

_ “He said he thought he had heard so; he knew 
nothing about it.” 

For a moment Bessie Alden said nothing more; 
then, at last, “And don’t you intend to write to—to 
Mr. Beaumont?” she inquired. 

“You mean to Lord Lambeth,” said her sister. 

“T said Mr. Beaumont, because he was so good a 
friend of yours.” 

Mrs. Westgate looked at the young girl with sis- 
terly candor. “I don’t care two straws for Mr. 
Beaumont.” 

“You were certainly very nice to him.” 

“T am nice to every one,’ said Mrs. Westgate, 
simply. 





172. AN INTERNATIONAL ‘EPISODE 


“To every one but me,” rejoined Bessie, smiling. 

Her sister continued to look at her; then, at last, © 
“Are you in love with Lord Lambeth?” she asked. 

The young girl stared a moment, and the ques-— 
tion was apparently too humorous even to make her 
blush. “Not that I know of,” she answered. 

“Because, if you are,’ Mrs. Westgate went on, 
“T shall certainly not send for him.” 

“That proves what I said,” declared Bessie, smil- 
ing—‘‘that you are not nice to me.” 

“Tt would be a poor service, my dear child,” said 
her sister. 

“In what sense? There is nothing against Lord 
Lambeth that I know of.” 

Mrs. Westgate was silent a moment. “You are 
in love with him, then?’ 

Bessie stared again; but this time she blushed a 
little. “Ah!if you won't be serious,” she answered, 
“Wwe will not mention him again.” 

For some moments Lord Lambeth was not men- 
tioned again, and it was Mrs. Westgate who, at the 
end of this period, reverted to him. “Of course I 
will let him know we are here, because I think he 
would be hurt—yjustly enough—if we should go 
away without seeing him. It is fair to give him a 
chance to come and thank me for the kindness we 
showed him. But I don’t want to seem eager.” 

“Neither do I,” said Bessie, with a little laugh. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 173 


_ “Though I confess,” added her sister, “that I am 
‘curious to see how he will behave.” 

“He behaved very well at Newport.” 

“Newport is not London. At Newport he could 
do as he liked; but here it is another affair. He has 
to have an eye to consequences.” 

“Tf he had more freedom, then, at Newport,” ar- 
gued Bessie, “it is the more to his credit that he be- 
haved well; and if he has to be so careful here, it is 
possible he will behave even better.” 

“Better—hetter,”’ repeated her sister. “My dear 
child, what is your point of view?” 

“How do you mean—my point of view?” 

“Don’t you care for Lord Lambeth—a little?” 

This time Bessie Alden was displeased; she slowly 
got up from the table, turning her face away from 
her sister. “You will oblige me by not talking so,” 
she said. 

Mrs. Westgate sat watching her for some mo- 
ments as she moved slowly about the room and went 
and stood at the window. “I will write to him this 
afternoon,” she said at last. 

“Do as you please!” Bessie answered; and pres- 
ently she turned round. “I am not afraid to say that 
I like Lord Lambeth. I like him very much.” 

“He is not clever,’ Mrs. Westgate declared. 

“Well, there have been clever people whom I have 
disliked,” said Bessie Alden; “so that. I suppose I 


174 CAN UINTERNATIONARH EE SODE 


may like a stupid one. Besides, Lord Lambeth is 
not stupid.” 

“Not so stupid as he looks!” exclaimed her sister, _ 
smiling. 
“Tf I were in love with Lord Lambeth, as you said 
just now, it would be bad policy on your part to 

abuse him.” 

“My dear child, don’t give me lessons in policy!’ 
cried Mrs. Westgate. “The policy I mean to follow 
is very deep.” 

The young girl began to walk about the room 
again; then she stopped before her sister. “I have 
never heard in the course of five minutes,” she said, 
“so many hints and innuendoes. I wish you would 
tell me in plain English what you mean.” 

“T mean that you may be much annoyed.” 

“That is still only a hint,” said Bessie. 

Her sister looked at her, hesitating an instant. 
“It will be said of you that you have come after 
Lord Lambeth—that you followed him.” 

Bessie Alden threw back her pretty head like a 
startled hind, and a look flashed into her face that 
made Mrs. Westgate rise from her chair. “‘Who 
says such things as that?” she demanded. 

piLeOplerietcrs 

I don’t believe it,” said Bessie. 

“You have a very convenient faculty of doubt. 
But my policy will be, as I say, very deep. I shall 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 17s 


leave you to find out this kind of thing for yourself.” 

Bessie fixed her eyes upon her sister, and Mrs. 
Westgate thought for a moment there were tears in 
them. “Do they talk that way here?” she asked. 

“You will see. I shall leave you alone.” 

“Don’t leave me alone,’ said Bessie Alden. 
“Take me away.” 

“No; I want to see what you make of it,” her sis- 
ter continued. 

“T don’t understand.” 

“You will understand after Lord Lambeth has 
come,” said Mrs. Westgate, with a little laugh. 

The two ladies had arranged that on this after- 
noon Willie Woodley should go with them to Hyde 
Park, where Bessie Alden expected to derive much 
entertainment from sitting on a little green chair, 
under the great trees, beside Rotten Row. The want 
of a suitable escort had hitherto rendered this pleas- 
ure inaccessible; but no escort now, for such an ex- 
pedition, could have been more suitable than their 
devoted young countryman, whose mission in life, it 
might almost be said, was to find chairs for ladies, 
and who appeared on the stroke of half past five with 
a white camellia in his button-hole. 

“T have written to Lord Lambeth, my dear,” said 
Mrs. Westgate to her sister, on coming into the 
room where Bessie Alden, drawing on her long gray 
gloves, was entertaining their visitor. 


176. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


Bessie said nothing, but Willie Woodley exclaimed 
that his lordship was in town; he had seen his name 
in the Morning Post. 

“Do you read the Morning Post?’ asked Mrs. 
Westgate. 

“Oh yes; it’s great fun,” Willie Woodley affirmed. 

“TI want so to see it,’ said Bessie; “there is so 
much about it in Thackeray.” 

“T will send it to you every morning,” said Willie 
Woodley. 

He found them what Bessie Alden thought excel- 
lent places, under the great trees, beside the famous 
avenue whose humors had been made familiar to the 
young girl’s childhood by the pictures in Punch, 
The day was bright and warm, and the crowd of 
riders and “spectators, and the great procession of 
carriages, were proportionately dense and brilliant. 
The scene bore the stamp of the London Season at 
its height, and Bessie Alden found more entertain- 
ment in it than she was able to express to her com- 
panions. She sat silent, under her parasol, and her 
imagination, according to its wont, let itself loose 
into the great changing assemblage of striking and 
suggestive figures. They stirred up a host of old 
impressions and preconceptions, and she found her- 
self fitting a history to this person and a theory to 
that, and making a place for them all in her little 
private museum of types. But if she said little, her 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE” 177 


eee on one side and Willie Woodley on the other 
expressed themselves in lively alternation. 

“Look at that green dress with blue flounces,”’ said 
‘Mrs. Westgate. “Quelle toilette!” 

“That’s the Marquis of Blackborough,”’ said the 
young man—‘the one in the white coat. I heard 
him speak the other night in the House of Lords; 
it was something about ramrods; he called them 
wamwods. He’s an awful swell.” 

“Did you ever see anything like the way they are 
pinned back?’ Mrs. Westgate resumed. “They 
never know where to stop.” 

“They do nothing but stop,” said Willie Wood- 
ley. “It prevents them from walking. Here comes 
a great celebrity, Lady Beatrice Bellevue. She’s 
awfully fast; see what little steps she takes.” 

“Well, my dear,” Mrs. Westgate pursued, “I hope 
you are getting some ideas for your couturtére?” 

“I am getting plenty of ideas,” said Bessie, “but 
I don’t know that my couturiére would appreciate 
them.” 

Willie Woodley presently perceived a friend on 
horseback, who drove up beside the barrier of the 
Row and beckoned to him. He went forward, and 
the crowd of pedestrians closed about him, so that 
for some ten minutes he was hidden from sight. At 
last he reappeared, bringing a gentleman with him 
—a gentleman whom Bessie at first supposed to be 
his friend dismounted. But at a second glance she 





178.) UNNI ASL LO) Nia pete tah 1 Te 


found herself looking at Lord Lambeth, who was 
shaking hands with her sister. 

“T found him over there,” said Willie Woodley, — 
“and I told him you were here.” 

And then Lord Lambeth, touching his hat a little, 
shook hands with Bessie. “Fancy your being here!” 
he said. He was blushing and smiling; he looked 
very handsome, and he had a kind of splendor that 
he had not had in America. Bessie Alden’s imagina- 
tion, as we know, was just then in exercise; so that. 
the tall young Englishman, as he stood there looking 
down at her, had the benefit of it. ‘“‘“He is hand- 
somer and more splendid than anything I have ever 
seen,” she said to herself. And then she remembered 
that he was a marquis, and she thought he looked 
like a marquis. : 

“T say, you know,” he cried, “you ought to have 
let a man know you were here!” | 

“T wrote to you an hour ago,” said Mrs. West- 
gate. | 

“Doesn’t all the world know it?” asked Bessie, 
smiling. 

“TI assure you I didn’t know it!” cried Lord Lam- 
beth. “Upon my honor, I hadn’t heard of it. Ask 
Woodley, now; had I, Woodley?” 

“Well, I think you are rather a humbug,” said 
Willie Woodley. 

“You don’t believe that—do you, Miss Alden?” 





AN INTERNATIONAL. EPISODE 179 


asked. his lordship. “You don’t believe I’m a hum- 
bug, eh?” 

“No,” said Bessie, “I don’t.” 

“You are too tall to stand up, Lord Lambeth,” 
Mrs. Westgate observed. “You are only tolerable 
when you sit down. Be so good as to get a chair.” 

He found a chair and placed it sidewise, close to 
the two ladies. “If I hadn’t met Woodley I should 
never have found you,” he went on. “Should I, 
Woodley ?” | 

“Well, I guess not,” said the young American. 

“Not even with my letter?’ asked Mrs. West- 
gate. 

“Ah, well, I haven’t got your letter yet; I suppose 
I shall get it this evening. It was awfully kind of 
you to write.” 

“So I said to Bessie,” observed Mrs. Westgate. 

“Did she say so, Miss Alden?” Lord Lambeth in- 
quired. “I dare say you have been here a month.” 

“We have been here three,” said Mrs. Westgate. 
_ “Have you been here three months?’ the young 
man asked again of Bessie. 

“Tt seems a long time,” Bessie answered. 

“T say, after that you had better not call me a 
humbug!” cried Lord Lambeth. “I have only been 
in town three weeks; but you must have been hiding 
away ; I haven’t seen you anywhere.” 

“Where should you have seen us—where should 
we have gone?” asked Mrs. Westgate. 


10. AN INTERNATIONAL SEPISODE 


“You should have gone to Hurlingham,” said 
Woodley. 

“No; let Lord Lambeth tell us,’ Mrs. Westgate 
insisted. 

“There are plenty of places to go to,’ said Lord 
Lambeth; “each one stupider than the other. I 
mean people’s houses; they send you cards.” 

“No one has sent us cards,” said Bessie. 

; We are very quiet,’ ‘her sister declared: “We 
are here as travellers.” 

“We have been to Madame Tr -3aud's,” Bessie 
pursued. 

Ohlisay.! cried: Word ambeth: 

“We thought we should find your image there,’ 
said Mrs. Westgate—“‘yours and Mr. Beaumont’s.’”’ 

“In the Chamber of Horrors°” laughed the young 
man. 

“Tt did duty very well for a party,” said Mrs. 
Westgate. “All the women were décolletées, and 
many of the figures looked as if they could speak if 
they tried.” : 

“Upon my word,” Lord Lambeth rejoined, “you 
see people at London parties that look as if they 
couldn’t speak if they tried.” 

“Do you think Mr. Woodley could find us Mr. 
Beaumont?’ asked Mrs. Westgate. 

Lord Lambeth stared and looked round him. “T 
dare say he could. Beaumont often comes here. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 181 


Don’t you think you could find him, Woodley? 
Make a dive into the crowd.” 

“Thank you; I have had enough diving,” said 
Willie Woodley. “I will wait till Mr. Beaumont 
comes to the surface.” 

“T will bring him to see you,” said Lord Lambeth ; 
“where are you staying?” 

“You will find the address in my letter—Jones’s 
Hotel.” 

“Oh, one of those places just out of Piccadilly? 
Beastly hole, isn’t it?’ Lord Lambeth inquired. 

“I believe it’s the best hotel in London,” said Mrs. 
Westgate. 

“But they give you awful rubbish to eat, don’t 
they?” his lordship went on. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Westgate. 

“TI always feel so sorry for the people that come 
up to town and go to live in those places,” contin- 
ued the young man. “They eat nothing but filth.” 

“Oh, I say!” cried Willie Woodley. 

“Well, how do you like London, Miss Alden?” 
Lord Lambeth asked, unperturbed by this ejacula- 
tion. 

“T think it’s grand,” said Bessie Alden. 

“My sister likes it, in spite of the ‘filth! ” Mrs. 
Westgate exclaimed. 

“T hope you are going to stay a long time.” 

“As long as I can,” said Bessie. 


182 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“And where is Mr. Westgate?” asked Lord Lam- 
beth of this gentleman’s wife. 

“He’s where he always is—in that tiresome New 
Works 

“He must be tremendously clever,’ said the 
young man. 

“T suppose he is,” said Mrs. Westgate. 

Lord Lambeth sat for nearly an hour with his 
American friends; but it is not our purpose to relate 
their conversation in full. He addressed a great 
many remarks to Bessie Alden, and finally turned 
towards her altogether, while Willie Woodley enter- 
tained Mrs. Westgate. Bessie herself said very 
little; she was on her guard, thinking of what her 
sister had said to her at lunch. Little by little, how- 
ever, she interested herself in Lord Lambeth again, 
as she had done at Newport; only it seemed to her 
that here he might become more interesting. He 
would be an unconscious part of the antiquity, the 
impressiveness, the picturesqueness, of England; and 
poor Bessie Alden, like many a Yankee maiden, was 
terribly at the mercy of picturesqueness. 

“T have often wished I were at Newport again,” 
said the young man. “Those days I spent at your 
sister's were awfully jolly.” | 

“We enjoyed them very much; I hope your father 
is better.” 

“Oh dear, yes. When I got to England he was 
out grouse-shooting. It was what you call in 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE § 183: 


|America a gigantic fraud. My mother had got 
‘nervous. My three weeks at Newport seemed like a 
| PAPPY dream.” , : 

“America certainly is very different from Eng- 
land,” said Bessie. 

“T hope you like England better, eh?’ Lord Lam- 
beth rejoined, almost persuasively. 

“No Englishman can ask that seriously of a per- 
son of another country.” 

Her companion looked at her for a moment. 
“You mean it’s a matter of course?” 

“Tf I were English,” said Bessie, “it would cer- 
tainly seem to me a matter of course that every one 
should be a good patriot.” 

“Oh dear, yes, patriotism is everything,” said 
Lord Lambeth, not quite following, but very con- 
tented. “Now, what are you going to do here?” 

“On Thursday I am going to the Tower.” 

“The Tower?” 

“The Tower of London. Did you never hear 
of it?’ 

“Oh yes, I have been there,” said Lord Lambeth. 
**T was taken there by my governess when I was six 
years old. It’s a rum idea, your going there.” 

“Do give me a few more rum ideas,” said Bessie. 
‘TI want to see everything of that sort. I am going 
to Hampton Court, and to Windsor, and to the 
Dulwich Gallery.” 

Lord Lambeth seemed greatly amused. “I won- 


184 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


der you don’t go to the Rosherville Gardens.” 

“Are they interesting?” asked Bessie. 

“Oh, wonderful!” 

VAre they very old?) Thats all) li care-tor.@ said 
Bessie. 

“They are tremendously old; they are falling to 
ruins.” 

“T think there is nothing so charming as an old 
ruinous garden,” said the young girl. “We must 
certainly go there.” 

Lord Lambeth broke out into merriment. “T say, 
Woodley,” he cried, “here’s Miss Alden wants to go 
to the Rosherville Gardens!’ 

Willie Woodley looked a little blank; he was 
caught in the fact of ignorance of an apparently 
conspicuous feature of London life. But in a mo- 
ment hestumied sit ofan V crys well) Bhetsaidvaa iis 
write for a permit.” 

Lord Lambeth’s exhilaration increased. “Gad, I 
believe you Americans would go anywhere!” he 
cried. 

“We wish to go to Parliament,” said Bessie. 
“That’s one of the first things.” 

“Oh, it would bore you to death!” cried the young 
man. 

“We wish to hear you speak.” 

“IT never speak—except to young ladies,” said 
Lord Lambeth, smiling. 

Bessie Alden looked at him a while, smiling, too, 


eri Pha) ONAL PISODE 165 


in the shadow of her parasol. ‘You are very 
strange,’ she murmured. “I don’t think I approve 
of you.” 

““Ah, now, don’t be severe, Miss Alden,” said Lord 
Lambeth, smiling still more. “Please don’t be se- 
vere. I want you to like me—awfully.” 

“To like you awfully? You must not laugh at 
me, then, when I make mistakes. I consider it my 
right, as a free-born American, to make as many 
mistakes as I choose.” 

“Upon my word I didn’t laugh at you,” said Lord 
Lambeth. 

“And not only that,’ Bessie went on; “but I hold 
that all my mistakes shall be set down to my credit. 
You must think the better of me for them.” 

“T can’t think better of you than I do,” the young 
man declared. 

Bessie Alden looked at him a moment. “You 
certainly speak very well to young ladies. But why 
don’t you address the House ?—isn’t that what they 
call it?” 

“Because I have nothing to say,” said Lord Lam- 
beth. 

“Haven’t you a great position?’ asked Bessie 
Alden. 

He looked a moment at the back of his glove. 
“T’ll set that down,” he said, “as one of your mis- 
takes to your credit.” And as if he disliked talking 
about his position, he changed the subject. “I wish 


186. AN: INTERNATIONAES EPISODE 


you would let me go with you to the Tower, and 
to Hampton Court, and to all those other places.” 
_ “We shall be most happy,” said Bessie. 

“And of course I shall be delighted to show you 
the House of Lords—some day that suits you. 
There are a lot of things I want to do for you. I 
want to make you have a good time. And I should 
like very much to present some of my friends to 
you, if it wouldn’t bore you. Then it would be 
awfully kind of you to come down to Branches.” 

“We are much obliged to you, Lord Lambeth,” 
said Bessie. “What is Branches?” 

~“Tt’s a house in the country. I think you might 
like it.” 

Willie Woodley and Mrs. Westgate at this mo- 
ment were sitting in silence, and the young man’s 
ear caught these last words of Lord Lambeth’s. 
“He’s inviting Miss Bessie to one of his castles,” he 
murmured to his companion. 

Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she mentally 
called ‘complications,’ immediately got up; and the 
two ladies, taking leave of Lord Lambeth, returned, 
under Mr. Woodley’s conduct, to Jones’s Hotel. 

Lord Lambeth came to see them on the morrow, 
bringing Percy Beaumont with him—the latter hav- 
ing instantly declared his intention of neglecting 
none of the usual offices of civility. This declara- 
tion, however, when his kinsman informed him of 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 187 


the advent of their American friends, had been pre- 
ceded by another remark. 

“Here they are, then, and you are in for it.” 

“What am I in for?’ demanded Lord Lambeth. 

“T will let your mother give it a name. With all 
respect to whom,” added Percy Beaumont, “I must 
decline on this occasion to do any more police duty. 
Her Grace must look after you herself.” 

“T will give her a chance,” said her Grace’s son, 
a trifle grimly. “I shall make her go and see them.” 

“She won’t do it, my boy.” 

“We'll see if she doesn’t,” said Lord Lambeth. 

But if Percy Beaumont took a sombre view of 
the arrival of the two ladies at Jones’s Hotel, he was 
sufficiently a man of the world to offer them a smil- 
ing countenance. He fell into animated conversa- 
tion—conversation, at least, that was animated on 
her side—with Mrs. Westgate, while his companion 
made himself agreeable to the young lady. Mrs. 
Westgate began confessing and protesting, declar- 
ing and expounding. 

“T must say London is a great deal brighter and 
prettier just now than when I was here last—in the 
month of November. There is evidently a great 
deal going on, and you seem to have a good many 
flowers. I havé no doubt it is very charming for 
all you people, and that you amuse yourselves im- 
mensely. It is very good of you to let Bessie and 
me come and sit and look at you. I suppose you 


168 °° ANSIN EE RNADIONAL AEP Seine 


think I am satirical, but I must confess that that’s 
the feeling I have in London.” 

“T am afraid I don’t quite understand to what 
feeling you allude,” said Percy Beaumont. 

“The feeling that it’s all very well for you English 
people. Everything is beautifully arranged for 
you.” | 

“Tt seems to me it is very well for some Ameri- 
cans, sometimes,” rejoined Beaumont. 

“For some of them, yes—if they like to be patro- 
nized. But I must say I don’t like to be patronized. 
I may be very eccentric and undisciplined and outra- 
geous, but I confess I never was fond of patronage. 
I like to associate with people on the same terms 
as I do in my own country; that’s a peculiar taste 
that I have. But here people seem to expect some- 
thing else—Heaven knows what! I am afraid you 
will think I am very ungrateful, for I certainly have 
received a great deal of attention. The last time I 
was here, a lady sent me a message that I was at 
liberty to come and see her.” 

“Dear me! I hope you didn’t go,” observed Percy 
Beaumont. 

“You are deliciously naive, I must say that for 
you!” Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. “It must be a 
great advantage to you here in London. I suppose 
if I myself had a little more naivete, I should enjoy 
it more. I should be content to sit on a chair in 
the park, and see the people pass, and be told that 


AN PE RINATIONAI EPISODE, 159 


this is the Duchess of Suffolk, and that is the Lord 
Chamberlain, and that I must be thankful for the 
privilege of beholding them. I dare say it is very 
wicked and critical of me to ask for anything else. 
But I was always critical, and I freely confess to the 
sin of being fastidious. I am told there is some 
remarkably superior second-rate society provided 
here for strangers. Merci! I don’t want any supe- 
rior second-rate society. 1 want the society that I 
have been accustomed to.” 

“T hope you don’t call Lambeth and me second- 
rate,’ Beaumont interposed- 

“Oh, I am accustomed to you,” said Mrs. West- 
gate. “Do you know that you English sometimes 
make the most wonderful speeches? The first time 
I came to London I went out to dine—as I told 
you, I have received a great deal of attention. After 
dinner, in the drawing-room I had some conversation 
with an old lady; I assure you I had. I forget what 
we talked about, but she presently said, in allusion 
to something we were discussing, ‘Oh, you know, the 
aristocracy do so-and-so; but in one’s own class of 
life it is very different.’ In one’s own class of life! 
What is a poor unprotected American woman to do 
in a country where she is liable to have that sort of 
thing said to her?” 

“You seem to get hold of some very queer old 
ladies; I compliment you on your acquaintance!’ 
Percy Beaumont exclaimed. “If you are trying to 


190 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


bring me to admit that London is an odious place; 
you'll not succeed. I’m extremely fond of it, and 1 
think it the jolliest place in the world.” 

“Pour vous autres. I never said the contrary,” 
Mrs. Westgate retorted. I make use of this expres- 
sion, because both interlocutors had begun to raise 
their voices. Percy Béaumont naturally did not like 
to hear his country abused, and Mrs. Westgate, no 
less naturally, did not like a stubborn debater. 

“Hallo!” said Lord Lambeth; “what are they up 
to now?” And he came away from the window, 
where he had been standing with Bessie Alden. 

“T quite agree with a very clever countrywoman 
of mine,” Mrs. Westgate continued, with charming 
ardor, though with imperfect relevancy. She 
smiled at the two gentlemen for a moment with ter- 
rible brightness, as if to toss at their feet—upon 
their native heath—the gauntlet of defiance. “For 
me there are only two social positions worth speak- 
ing of—that of an American lady, and that of the 
Emperor of Russia.” 

“And what do you do with the American gentle- 
men?’ asked Lord Lambeth. 

“She leaves them in America 
Beaumont. 

On the departure of their visitors, Bessie Alden 
told her sister that Lord Lambeth would come the 
next day, to go with them to the Tower, and that he 


1°? 


said Percy 


| 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE ig! 


had kindly offered to bring his “trap,’’ and drive 


them thither. 

Mrs. Westgate listened in silence to this communi- 
cation, and for some time afterwards she said noth- 
ing. But at last: “If you had not requested me 
the other day not to mention it,” she began, “there 
is something I should venture to ask you.” Bessie 
frowned a little; her dark blue eyes were more dark 
than blue. But her sister went on. “As it is, I will 
take the risk. You are not in love with Lord Lam- 
beth: I believe it, perfectly. Very good. But is 
there, by chance, any danger of your becoming so? 
It’s a very simple question; don’t take offence. I 
have a particular reason,” said Mrs. Westgate, “for 
wanting to know.” 

Bessie Alden for some moments said nothing; she 
only looked displeased. ‘‘No; there is no danger,” 
she answered at last, curtly. 

“Then I should like to frighten them,” declared 
Mrs. Westgate, clasping her jewelled hands. 

“To frighten whom?” 

“All these people; Lord Lambeth’s family and 
friends.” 

“How should you frighten them?’ asked the 
young girl. 

“Tt wouldn’t be I—it would be you. It would 
frighten them to think that you should absorb his 
lordship’s young affections.” 


192 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


Bessie Alden, with her clear eyes still overshad- 
owed by her dark brows, continued to interrogate. 
“Why should that frighten them?” 

Mrs. Westgate poised her answer with a smile 
before delivering it. ‘Because they think you are 
not good enough. You are a charming girl, beau- 
tiful and amiable, intelligent and clever, and as 
bien-élevée as it is possible to be; but you are not a 
fit match for Lord Lambeth.” 

Bessie Alden was decidedly disgusted. ‘Where 
do you get such extraordinary ideas?” she asked. 
**You have said some such strange things lately. My 
dear Kitty, where do you collect them?” 

Kitty was evidently enamoured of her idea. 
“Yes, it would put them on pins and needles, and it 
wouldn’t hurt you. Mr. Beaumont is already most 
uneasy; I could soon see that.” 

The young girl meditated a moment. “Do you 
mean that they spy upon him—that they interfere 
with him?” 

“T don’t know what power they have to interfere, 
but I know that a British mamma may worry her 
son’s life out.” 

It has been intimated that, as regards certain dis- 
agreeable things, Bessie Alden had a fund of scep- 
ticism. She abstained on the present occasion from 
expressing disbelief, for she wished not to irritate 
_her sister. But she said to herself that Kitty had 
been misinformed—that this was a traveller’s tale. 


AN INTERNATIONAL, EPISODE 193 


Though she was a girl of a lively imagination, there 
could in the nature of things be, to her sense, no 
reality in the idea of her belonging to vulgar cate- 
gory. What she said aloud was, “I must say that in 
that case I am very sorry for Lord Lambeth.” 

Mrs. Westgate, more and more exhilarated by 
her scheme, was smiling at her again. “If I could 
only believe it was safe!” she exclaimed. “When 
you begin to pity him, I, on my side, am afraid.” 

“Afraid of what?” 

“Of your pitying him too much.” 

Bessie Alden turned away impatiently; but at the 
end of a minute she turned back. ‘What if I should 
pity him too much?” she asked. 

Mrs. Westgate hereupon turned away, but after 
a moment’s reflection she also faced her sister again. 
“It would come, after all, to the same thing,” she 
said. 

Lord Lambeth came the next day with his trap, 
and the two ladies, attended by Willie Woodley, 
placed themselves under his guidance, and were con- 
veyed eastward, through some of the dusker portions 
of the metropolis, to the great turreted donjon which 
overlooks the London shipping. They all descended 
from their vehicle and entered the famous en- 
closure; and they secured the services of a vener- 
able beef-eater, who, though there were many other 
claimants for legendary information, made a fine 
exclusive party of them, and marched them through 


ig94. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


courts and corridors, through armories and prisons. 
He delivered his usual peripatetic discourse, and 
they stopped and stared, and peeped and stooped, 
according to the official admonitions. Bessie Alden 
asked the old man in the crimson doublet a great 
many questions; she thought it a most fascinating 
place. Lord Lambeth was in high good-humor; he 
was constantly laughing; he enjoyed what he would 
have called the lark. Willie Woodley kept looking 
at the ceilings and tapping the walls with the 
knuckle of a pearl-gray glove; and Mrs. Westgate, 
asking at frequent intervals to be allowed to sit 
down and wait till they came back, was as fre- 
quently informed that they would never come back. 
To a great many of Bessie’s questions—chiefly on 
collateral points of English history—the ancient 
warder was naturally unable to reply; whereupon 
she always appealed to Lord Lambeth. But his 
lordship was very ignorant. He declared that he 
knew nothing about that sort of thing, and he 
seemed greatly diverted at being treated as an 
authority. 

“You can’t expect every one to know as much as 
you,” he said. 

“T should expect you to know a great deal more,” 
declared Bessie Alden. 

“Women always know more than men about 
names and dates, and that sort of thing,’ Lord 
Lambeth rejoined. ‘There was Lady Jane Grey we 


| 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE § 195 


have just been hearing about, who went in for Latin 
and Greek, and all the learning of her age.” 

“You have no right to be ignorant, at all events,” 
said Bessie. 

“Why haven’t I as good a right as any one else?” 

“Because you have lived in the midst of all these 
things.” 

“What things do you mean? Axes, and blocks, 
and thumb-screws?”’ 

“All these historical things. You belong to a 
historical family.” 

“Bessie is really too historical,” said Mrs. West- 
gate, catching a word of this dialogue. 

“Yes, you are too historical,’ said Lord Lambeth, 
laughing, but thankful for a formula. “Upon my 
honor, you are too historical!’ 

He went with the ladies a couple of days later 
to Hampton Court, Willie Woodley being also of 
the party. The afternoon was charming, the famous 
horse-chestnuts were in blossom, and Lord Lam- 
beth, who quite entered into the spirit of the cock- 
ney excursionist, declared that it was a jolly old 
place. Bessie Alden was in ecstasies ; she went about 
murmuring and exclaiming. 

“It’s too lovely,” said the young girl; “it’s too 
enchanting ; it’s too exactly what it ought to be!’ 

At Hampton Court the little flocks of visitors are 
not provided with an official bell-wether, but are left 
to browse at discretion upon the local antiquities. 


196 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


It happened in this manner that, in default of an- 
other informant, Bessie Alden, who on doubtful 
questions was able to suggest a great many alterna- 
tives, found herself again applying for intellectual 
assistance to Lord Lambeth. But he again assured 
her that he was utterly helpless in such matters— 
that his education had been sadly neglected. 

“And I am sorry it makes you unhappy,” he 
added, in a moment. 

“You are very disappointing, Lord Lambeth,” 
she said. 

“Ah, now, don’t say that!” he cried. “That’s the 
worst thing you could possibly say.” 

“No,” she rejoined, “it is not so bad as to say 
that I had expected nothing of you.” 

“T don’t know. Give me a notion of the sort of 
thing you expected.” | 

“Well,” said Bessie Alden, “that you would be 
more what I should like to be—what I should try 
to be—in your place.” 

“Ah, &my ‘placel)’ exclaimed Lord® UWambeth: 
“You are always talking about my place!” 

The young girl looked at him; he thought she 
colored a little; and for a moment she made no 
rejoinder. 

“Does it strike you that I am always talking 
about your place?’ she asked. 

“T am sure you do it a great honor,” he said, 
fearing he had been uncivil. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 197 


“T have often thought about it,’ she went on, 
after a moment. “I have often thought about your 
being a hereditary legislator. A hereditary legis- 
lator ought to know a great many things.” 

“Not if he doesn’t legislate.” 

“But you do legislate; it’s absurd your saying 
you don’t. You are very much looked up to here 
—I am assured of that.” 

“T don’t know that I ever noticed it.” 

“It is because you are used to it, then. You 
ought to fill the place.” 

“How do you mean to fill it?” asked Lord Lam- 
beth. 

“You ought to be very clever and brilliant, and 
to know almost everything.” 

Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. “Shall 
I tell you something?” he asked. “A young man 
in my position, as you call it “ 

“T didn’t invent the term,’ interposed Bessie 
Alden. “I have seen it in a great many books.” 

“Hang it! you are always at your books. A fel- 
low in my position, then, does very well whatever 
he does. That’s about what I mean to say.” 

“Well, if your own people are content with you,” 
said Bessie Alden, laughing, “it is not for me to 
complain. But I shall always think that, properly, 
you should have been a great mind—a great char- 
acter? 

“Ah, that’s very theoretic,’ Lord Lambeth de- 





198 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


clared. “Depend upon it, that’s a Yankee preju- 
dice: / 

‘“Tlappy the country,” said Bessie Alden, “where 
even people’s prejudices are so elevated!” 

“Well, after all,” observed Lord Lambeth, “I 
don’t know that I am such a fool as you are trying 
to. make me out.” 

“T said nothing so rude as that; but I must re- 
peat that you are disappointing.” 

“My dear Miss Alden,” exclaimed the young 
man, “I am the best fellow in the world!” 

“Ah, if it were not for that!’ said Bessie Alden, 
with a smile. 

Mrs. Westgate had a good many more friends 
in London than she pretended, and before long she 
had renewed acquaintance witl most of them. 
Their hospitality was extreme, so that, one thing 
leading to another, she began, as the phrase is, to 
go out. Bessie Alden, in this way, saw something 
of what she found it a great satisfaction to call to 
herself English society. She went to balls and 
danced, she went to dinners and talked, she went 
to concerts and listened (at concerts Bessie always 
listened), she went to exhibitions and wondered. 
Her enjoyment was keen and her curiosity insatia- 
ble, and, grateful in general for all her opportuni- 
ties, she especially prized the privilege of meeting 
certain celebrated persons—authors and _ artists, 
philosophers and statesmen—of whose renown she 


5) 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 199 


had been a humble and distant beholder, and who 
now, as a part of the habitual furniture of London 
drawing-rooms, struck her as stars fallen from the 
firmament and become palpable—revealing also 
sometimes, on contact, qualities not to have been pre- 
dicted of sidereal bodies. 

Bessie, who knew so many of her contemporaries 
by reputation, had a good many personal disap- 
pointments; but, on the other hand, she had innu- 
merable satisfactions and enthusiasms, and she com- 
municated the emotions of either class to a dear 
friend of her own sex in Boston, with whom she 
was in voluminous correspondence. Some of her 
reflections, indeed, she attempted to impart to Lord 
Lambeth, who came almost every day to Jones’s 
Hotel, and whom Mrs. Westgate admitted to be 
really devoted. Captain Littledale, it appeared, had 
gone to India; and of several others of Mrs. West- 
gate’s ex-pensioners—gentlemen who, as she said, 
had made, in New York, a clubhouse of her draw- 
ing-room—no tidings were to be obtained; but Lord 
Lambeth was certainly attentive enough to make 
up for the accidental absences, the short memories, 
all the other irregularities, of every one else. He 
drove them in the park, he took them to visit private 
collections of pictures, and, having a house of his 
own, invited them to dinner. Mrs. Westgate, fol- 
lowing the fashion of many of her compatriots, 
caused herself and her sister to be presented at the 
English court by her diplomatic representative—for 


200 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


it was in this manner that. she alluded to the Ameri- 
can minister to England, inquiring what on earth he 
was put there for, if not to make the proper ar- 
rangements for one’s going to a Drawing-room. 
Lord Lambeth declared that he hated Drawing- 
rooms, but he participated in the ceremony on the 
day on which the two ladies at Jones’s Hotel re- 
paired to Buckingham Palace in a remarkable coach 
which his lordship had sent to fetch them. He had 
a gorgeous uniform, and Bessie Alden was particu- 
larly struck with his appearance, especially when on 
‘her asking him—rather foolishly, as she felt—if he 
were a loyal subject, he replied that he was a loyal 
subjéct to her. This declaration was emphasized 
by his dancing with her at a royal ball to which the 
two ladies afterwards went, and was not impaired 
by the fact that she thought he danced very ill. He 
seemed to her wonderfully kind; she asked herself, 
with growing vivacity, why he should be so kind. 
It was his disposition—that seemed the natural 
answer. She had told her sister that she liked him 
very much, and now that she liked him more she 
wondered why. She liked him for his disposition ; 
to this question as well that seemed the natural an- 
swer. When once the impressions of London life 
began to crowd thickly upon her she completely 
forgot her sister’s warning about the cynicism of 
public opinion. It had given her great pain at the 
moment, but there was no particular reason why she 
should remember it; it corresponded too little with 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 201 


-any sensible reality; and it was disagreeable to 
Bessie to remember disagreeable things. So she was 
not haunted with the sense of a vulgar imputation. 
She was not in love with Lord Lambeth—she 
assured herself of that. 

It will immediately be observed that when such 
assurances become necessary the state of a young 
lady’s affections is already ambiguous; and, indeed, 
Bessie Alden made no attempt to dissimulate—to 
herself, of course—a certain tenderness that she felt 
for the young nobleman. She said to herself that 
she liked the type to which he belonged—the simple, 
candid, manly, healthy English temperament. She 
spoke to herself of him as women speak of young 
men they like—alluded to his bravery (which she 
had never in the least seen tested), to his honesty 
and gentlemanliness, and was not silent upon the 
subject of his good looks. She was perfectly con- 
scious, moreover, that she liked to think of his more 
adventitious merits; that her imagination was ex- 
cited and gratified by the sight of a handsome young 
man endowed with such large opportunities—oppor- 
tunities she hardly knew for what, but, as she sup- 
posed, for doing great things—for setting an ex- 
ample, for exerting an influence, for conferring 
happiness, for encouraging the arts. She had a kind 
of ideal of conduct for a young man who should 
find himself in this magnificent position, and she 
tried to adapt it to Lord Lambeth’s deportment, as 


402 - AN INTERNATIONAL: EPISODE 


you might attempt to fit a silhouette in cut Papen 
upon a shadow projected upon a wall. 

But Bessie Alden’s silhouette refused to coincide 
with his lordship’s image, and this want of harmony. 
sometimes vexed her more than she thought reason-, 
able. When he was absent it was, of course, less, 
striking; then he seemed to her a sufficiently grace-. 
ful combination of high responsibilities and amiable 
qualities. But when he sat there within sight, laugh-. 
ing and talking with his customary good-humor and 
simplicity, she measured it more accurately, and she. 
felt acutely that if Lord Lambeth’s position was 
heroic, there was but little of the hero in the young 
man himself. Then her imagination wandered 
away from him—very far away; for it was an in- 
contestable fact that at such moments he seemed 
distinctly dull. I am afraid that while Bessie’s 
imagination was thus invidiously roaming, she can- 
not have been herself a very lively companion; but 
it may well have been that these occasional fits of 
indifference seemed to Lord Lambeth a part of the 
young girl’s personal charm. It had been a part of 
this charm from the first that he felt that she judged 
him and measured him more freely and irresponsi- 
bly—more at her ease and her leisure, as it were— 
than several young ladies with whom he had been, 
on the whole, about as intimate. To feel this, and 
yet to feel that she also liked him, was very agree- 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 203 


able to Lord Lambeth. He fancied he had com- 
passed that gratification so desirable to young men 
of title and fortune—being liked for himself. It is 
true that a cynical counsellor might have whispered 
to him, “Liked for yourself? Yes; but not so very 
much!” He had, at any rate, the constant hope of 
being liked more. 

It may seem, perhaps, a trifle singular—but it is 
nevertheless true—that Bessie Alden, when he 
struck her as dull, devoted some time, on grounds 
of conscience, to trying to like him more. I say on 
grounds of conscience, because she felt that he had 








been extremely “nice” to her sister, and because she 
reflected that it was no more than ‘fair that she 


should think as well of him as he thought of her. 
This effort was possibly sometimes not so successful 
as it might have been, for the result of it was occa- 
sionally a vague irritation, which expressed itself in 
hostile criticism of several British institutions. 





Bessie Alden went to some entertainments at which 
she met Lord Lambeth; but she went to others at 
which his lordship. was neither actually nor poten- 
tially present ; and it was chiefly on these latter occa- 
sions that she encountered those literary and artistic 
celebrities of whom mention has been made. After 
a while she reduced the matter to a principle. If 
Lord Lambeth should appear anywhere, it was a 
symbol that there would be no poets and philoso- 


204 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


phers ; and in consequence—for it was almost a strict 
consequence—she used to enumerate to the young 
man these objects of her admiration. 

“You seem to be awfully fond of those sort of 
people,” said Lord Lambeth one day, as if the idea 
had just occurred to him. 

“They are the people in England I am most curi- 
ous to see,’ Bessie Alden replied. 

“T suppose that’s because you have read so much,” 
said Lord Lambeth, gallantly. 

“I have not read so much. It is because we think 
so much of them at home.” 

“Oh, I see,’ observed the young nobleman. “In 
Boston.” 

“Not only in Boston; everywhere,” said Bessie. 
“We hold them in great honor; they go to the best 
dinner-parties.” 

“I dare say you are right. I can’t say I know 
many of them.” 

“It’s a pity you don’t,” Bessie Alden declared. 
“It would do you good.” 

“I dare say it would,” said Lord Lambeth, very 
humbly. “But I must say I don’t like the looks of 
some of them.” 

“Neither do I—of some of them. But there are 
all kinds, and many of them are charming.” 

“T have talked with two or three of them,” the 
young man went on, “and I thought they had a kind 
of fawning manner.” 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 205 


“Why should they fawn?” Bessie Alden de- 
manded. 

“Tm sure I don’t know. Why, indeed?’ 

“Perhaps you only thought so,” said Bessie. 

“Well, of course,’ rejoined her companion, 
“that’s a kind of thing that can’t be proved.” 

“In America they don’t fawn,” said Bessie. 

“Ah, well, then, they must be better company.” 

Bessie was silent a moment. “That is one of 
the things I don’t like about England,” she said— 
“your keeping the distinguished people apart.” 

“How do you mean apart?” 

“Why, letting them come only to certain places. 
You never see them.” 

Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. “What 
people do you mean?” 

“The eminent people—the authors and artists— 
the clever people.” 

(Oimmcucre’ ates other wetnent) people besides 
those,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“Well, you certainly keep them apart,’ repeated 
the young girl. 

“And there are other clever people,” added Lord 
Lambeth, simply. 

Bessie Alden looked at him, and she gave a light 
laugh. “Not many,” she said. 

On another occasion—just after a dinner-party— 
she told him that there was something else in Eng- 
land she did not like. 


206 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“Oh, I say!” he cried, “haven’t you abused us 
enough ?” 

“T have never abused you at all,” said Bessie; 
“but I don’t like your precedence.” 

“Tt isn’t my precedence!” Lord Lambeth declared, 
laughing. 

“Yes, it is yours—just exactly yours: and I think 
it’s odious,” said Bessie. 

“T never saw such a young lady for discussing 
things! Has some one had the impudence to go 
before you?” asked his lordship. 

“Tt is not the going before me that I object to,” 
said Bessie; “it is their thinking that they have a 
right to do it—a right that I recognize.” 

“T never saw such a young lady as you are for not 
‘recognizing.’ I have no doubt the thing is beastly, 
but it saves a lot of trouble.” 

“Tt makes a lot of trouble. It’s horrid,” said 
Bessie. 

“But how would you have the first people go?” 
asked Lord Lambeth. “They can’t go last.’ 

“Whom do you mean by the first people?” 

“Ah, if you mean to question first principles!’ 
said Lord Lambeth. 

“Tf those are your first principles, no wonder some 
of your arrangements are horrid,” observed Bessie 
Alden, with a very pretty ferocity. “I am a young 
girl, so of course I go last; but imagine what Kitty 
must feel on being informed that she is not at liberty 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 207 


to budge until certain other ladies have passed 
out.” 

“Oh, I say she is not ‘informed’!’ cried Lord 
Lambeth. “No one would do such a thing as that.” 

“She is made to feel it,” the young girl insisted 
—“as if they were afraid she would make a rush 
for the door. No; you have a lovely country,” said 
Bessie Alden, “‘but your precedence is horrid.” 

“T certainly shouldn’t think your sister would like 
it,’ rejoined Lord Lambeth, with even exaggerated 
gravity. But Bessie Alden could induce him to enter 
no formal protest against this repulsive custom, 
which he seemed to think an extreme convenience. 

Percy Beaumont all this time had been a very 
much less frequent visitor at Jones’s Hotel than his 
noble kinsman; he had, in fact, called but twice upon 
the two American ladies. Lord Lambeth, who often 
saw him, reproached him with his neglect, and de- 
clared that, although Mrs. Westgate had said noth- 
ing about it, he was sure that she was secretly 
wounded by it. “She suffers too much to speak,” 
said Lord Lambeth. 

“That’s all gammon,” said Percy Beaumont; 
“there’s a limit to what people can suffer!” And, 
though sending no apologies to Jones’s Hotel, he 
undertook, in a manner, to explain his absence. 
“You are always there,” he said, “and that’s reason 
enough for my not going.” 


208 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“T don’t see why. There is enough for both of - 
us.” : 

“T don’t care to be a witness of your—your reck- - 
less passion,” said Percy Beaumont. 

Lord Lambeth looked at him with a cold eye, and 
for a moment said nothing. “It’s not so obvious 
as you might suppose,” he rejoined, dryly, “‘consid- 
ering what a demonstrative beggar I am.” 

“T don’t want to know anything about it—noth- 
ing whatever,’ said Beaumont. “Your mother 
asks me every time she sees me whether I believe 
you are really lost—and Lady Pimlico does the same. 
I prefer to be able to answer that I know nothing 
about it—that I never go there. I stay away. for 
consistency’s sake. As I said the other day, they 
must look after you themselves.” 

“You are devilish considerate,” said Lord Lam- 
beth. “They never question me.” 

“They are afraid of you. They are afraid of 
irritating you and making you worse. So-they go to 
work very cautiously, and, somewhere or other, they 
get their information. They know a great deal 
about you. They know that you have been with 
those ladies to the dome of St. Paul’s and—where 
was the other place?—to the Thames Tunnel.” 

“Tf all their knowledge is as accurate as that, it 
must be very valuable,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“Well, at any rate, they know that you have been 
visiting the ‘sights of the metropolis.’ They think 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 209 


very naturally, as it seems to me—that when you 
take to visiting the sights of the metropolis with a 
little American girl, there is serious cause for 
alarm.” Lord Lambeth responded to this intimation 
by scornful laughter, and his companion continued, 
after a pause: “I said just now I didn’t want to 
know anything about the affair; but I will confess 
that I am curious to learn whether you propose to 
marry Miss Bessie Alden.” 
On this point Lord Lambeth gave his interlocutor 
no immediate satisfaction; he was musing, with a 
frown. “By Jove,” he said, “they go rather too far! 
They shall find me dangerous—I promise them.” 
_ Percy Beaumont began to laugh. “You don’t 
redeem your promises. You said the other day you 
would make your mother call.” 
| Lord Lambeth continued to meditate. “I asked 
her to call,’’ he said, simply. 
““And she declined?” 
“Ves; but she shall do it yet.” 
| “Upon my word,” said Percy Beaumont, “if she 
gets much more frightened I believe she will.” 
Lord Lambeth looked at him, and he went on. 
“She will go to the girl herself.” 
“How do you mean she will go to her?” 

| “She will beg her off, or she will bribe her. She 

will take strong measures.” 

_ Lord Lambeth turned away in silence, and his 
“companion watched him take twenty steps and then 


| 








210 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


slowly return. “I have invited Mrs. Westgate ano 
Miss Alden to Branches,” he said, “and this evening 
I shall name a day.” 

“And shall you invite your mother and yout 

sisters to meet them?” 
“Explicitly !” 

“That will set the duchess off,” sae Percy Beatt 
mont. “TI suspect she will come.’ 

“She may do as she pleases.” 

Beaumont looked at Lord Lambeth. “You de 
really propose to marry the little sister, then?” 

“I like the way you talk about it!” cried the 
young man. “She won’t gobble me down; don’t be 
afraid.” 

“She won’t leave you on your knees,” said Percy 
Beaumont. “What is the inducement?” 

“You talk about proposing: wait till I have pro- 
posed,” Lord Lambeth went on. 

“That’s right, my dear fellow; think about it 
said Percy Beaumont. 

“She’s a charming girl,” pursued his igen 

“Of course she’s a charming girl. I don’t know 
a girl more charming, intrinsically. But there are 
other charming girls nearer home.” | 

“T like her spirit,” observed Lord Lambeth, almost 
as if he were trying to torment his cousin. 

“What's the peculiarity of her spirit ?” 

“She’s not afraid, and. she says things out, and 
she thinks herself as good as any one. She is the. 





AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 211 


only girl I have ever seen that was not dying to 
marry me.” 

“How do you know that, if you haven’t asked 
per?” 

“T don’t know how; but I know it.” 

“T am sure she asked me questions enough about 
your property and your titles,” said Beaumont. 

“She has asked me questions, too; no end of 
them,” Lord Lambeth admitted. “But she asked for 
information, don’t you know.” 

“Information? Aye, I’ll warrant she wanted it. 
Depend upon it that she is dying to marry you just 
as much and just as little as all the rest of them.” 

“T shouldn’t like her to refuse me—I shouldn't 
iiestuaee 
~ “Tf the thing would be so disagreeable, then, both 
to you and to her, in Heaven’s name leave it alone,” 
said Percy Beaumont. 

Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say 
to her sister about the rarity of Mr. Beaumont’s 
visits and the non-appearance of the Duchess of 
Bayswater. She professed, however, to derive 
more satisfaction from this latter circumstance than 
she could have done from the most lavish attentions 
on the part of this great lady. “It is most marked,” 
she said—‘‘most marked. It is a delicious proof 
that we have made them miserable. The day we 
dined with Lord Lambeth I was really sorry for the 
poor fellow.” It will have been gathered that the 


212° AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


entertainment offered by Lord Lambeth to his Amer- 
ican friends had not been graced by the presence of 
his anxious mother. He had invited several choice 
spitits to meet them; but the ladies of his immediate 
family were to Mrs. Westgate’s sense—a sense pos- 
sibly morbidly acute—conspicuous by their absence. 

“T don’t want to express myself in a manner that 
you dislike,” said Bessie Alden; ‘“‘but I don’t know 
why you should have so many theories about Lord 
_ Lambeth’s poor mother. You know a great many 
young men in New York without knowing their 
mothers.” 

Mrs. Westgate looked at her sister, and then 
turned away. ‘My dear Bessie, you are superb!” 
she said. 

“One thing is certain,’ the young girl continued. 
“Tf I believed I were a cause of annoyance—how- 
ever unwitting—to Lord Lambeth’s family, I should 
insist - 

“Insist upon my leaving England,” said Mrs. 
Westgate. 

“No, not that. I want to go to the National 
Gallery again; I want to see Stratford-on-Avon and 
Canterbury Cathedral. But I should insist upon his 
coming to see us no more.” 

“That would be very modest and very pretty of 
you; but you wouldn’t do it now.” 

“Why do you say ‘now’?” asked Bessie Alden. 
“Have I ceased to be modest ?” 








AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 213 


“You care for him too much. A month ago, 
when you said you didn’t, I believe it was quite 
true. But at present, my dear child,” said Mrs. 
Westgate, “you wouldn’t find it quite so simple a 
matter never to see Lord Lambeth again. I have 
seen it coming on.” | 

“You are mistaken,” said Bessie. ‘You don’t 
understand.” 

“My dear child, don’t be perverse,” rejoined her 
sister. 

“T know him better, certainly, if you mean that,” 
said Bessie. “And I like him very much. But I 
don’t like him enough to make trouble for him with 
his family. However, I don’t believe in that.” 

“T like the way you say ‘however,’”’ Mrs. West- 
gate exclaimed. “Come; you would not marry 
him ?” 

“Oh no,” said the young girl. 

Mrs. Westgate for a moment. seemed vexed. 
“Why not, pray?” she demanded. 

“Because I don’t care to,” said Bessie Alden. 

The morning after Lord Lambeth had had, with 
Percy Beaumont, that exchange of ideas which has 
just been narrated, the ladies at Jones’s Hotel re- 
ceived from his lordship a written invitation to pay 
their projected visit to Branches Castle on the fol- 
lowing Tuesday. “I think I have made up a very 
pleasant party,” the young nobleman said. - “Sev- 
eral people whom you know, and my mother and 


214 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


sisters, who have so long been regrettably prevented 
from making your acquaintance.” Bessie Alden 
lost no time in calling her sister’s attention to the 
injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, 
whose hostility was now proved to be a vain 
illusion. 

“Wait till you see if she comes,” said Mrs. West- 
gate. “And if she is to meet us at her son’s house, 
the obligation was all the greater for her to call 
upon us.” 

Bessie had not to wait long, and it appeared that 
Lord Lambeth’s mother now accepted Mrs. West- 
gate’s view of her duties. On the morrow, early in 
the afternoon, two cards were brought to the apart- 
ment of the American ladies—one of them bearing 
the name of the Duchess of Bayswater, and the other 
that of the Countess of Pimlico. Mrs. Westgate 
glanced at the clock. “It is not yet four,” she said: 
“they have come early; they wish to see us. We 
will receive them.” And she gave orders that her 
visitors should be admitted. A few moments later 
they were introduced, and there was a solemn ex- 
change of amenities. The duchess was a large lady, 
with a fine fresh color; the Countess of Pimlico 
was very pretty and elegant. 

The duchess looked about her as she sat down— 
looked not especially at Mrs. Westgate. “I dare 
say my son has told you that I have been wanting 
to come and see you,” she observed. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 215 


“Vou are very kind,” said Mrs. Westgate, vaguely 
—her conscience not allowing her to assent to this 
proposition—and, indeed, not permitting her to 
enunciate her own with any appreciable emphasis. 

“He says you were so kind to him in America,” 
said the duchess. 

‘We are very glad,’ Mrs. Westgate replied, “to 
have been able to make him a little more—a little 
less—a little more comfortable.” 

“T think that he stayed at your house,” remarked 
the Duchess of Bayswater, looking at Bessie 
Alden. : 

“A very short time,” said Mrs. Westgate. 

“Oh!” said the duchess; and she continued to look 
at Bessie, who was engaged in conversation with 
her daughter. 

“Do you like London?” Lady Pimlico had asked 
of Bessie, after looking at her a good deal—at her 
face and her hands, her dress and her hair. 

“Very much indeed,” said Bessie. 

“Do you like this hotel?” 

“It is very comfortable,” said Bessie. 

“Do you like stopping at hotels?” inquired Lady 
Pimlico, after a pause. 

“T am very fond of travelling,” Bessie answered, 
“and I suppose hotels are a necessary part of it. But 
they are not the part I am fondest of.” 

“Oh, I hate travelling,” said the Countess of 


5) 


216 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


Pimlico, and transferred her attention to Mrs. 
Westgate. 

“My son tells me you are going to Branches,” the 
duchess said, presently. 

“Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us,” 
said Mrs. Westgate, who perceived that her visitor 
had now begun to look at her, and who had her 
customary happy consciousness of a distinguished 
appearance. The only mitigation of her felicity on 
this point was that, having inspected her visitor’s 
own costume, she said to herself, ““She won’t know 
how well I am dressed!” 

“He has asked me to go, but I am not sure I shall 
be able,” murmured the duchess. 

“He had offered us the p— the prospect of meet- 
ing you,” said Mrs. Westgate. | 

“I hate the country at this season,” responded the 
duchess. } 

Mrs. Westgate gave a little shrug. “I think it is 
pleasanter than London.” , 

But the duchess’s eyes were absent again; she was 
looking fixedly at Bessie. In a moment she slowly 
rose, walked to a chair that stood empty at the young 
girl’s right hand, and silently seated herself. As 
she was a majestic, voluminous woman, this little 
transaction had, inevitably, an air of somewhat im- 
pressive attention. It diffused a certain awkward- 
ness, which Lady Pimlico, as a sympathetic daugh- 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 217 


ter, perhaps desired to rectify in turning to Mrs. 
Westgate. 

“T dare say you go out a great deal,” she observed. 

“No, very little. We are strangers, and we didn’t 
come here for society.” 

“T see,” said Lady Pimlico. “It’s rather nice in 
town just now.” 

“T?’s charming,” said Mrs. Westgate. “But we 
only go to see a few people—whom we like.” 

“Of course one can’t like every one,” said Lady 
Pimlico. ; 

“Tt depends upon one’s society,” Mrs. Westgate 
rejoined. 

The duchess meanwhile had addressed herself to 
Bessie. “My son tells me the young ladies in 
America are so clever.” 

“T am glad they made so good an impression on 
him,” said Bessie, smiling. 

The duchess was not smiling; her large, fresh 
face was very tranquil. “He is very susceptible,’ 
she said. ‘He thinks every one clever, and some- 
times they are.” 

“Sometimes,”’ Bessie assented, smiling still. 

The duchess looked at her a little, and then went 
on: “Lambeth is very susceptible, but he is very 
volatile, too.” 

“Volatile?” asked Bessie. 

“He is very inconstant. It won’t do to depend 
on him.” 


218 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


“Ah,” said Bessie, “I don’t recognize that de- 
scription. We have depended on him greatly—my 
sister and I—and he has never disappointed us.” 

“He will disappoint you yet,” said the duchess. 

Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she were amused 
at the duchess’s persistency. “TI suppose it will de- 
pend on what we expect of him.” 

“The less you expect the better,’ Lord Lambeth’s 
mother declared. 

“Well,” said Bessie, “we expect nothing unreason- 
ales 

The duchess for a moment was silent, though she 
appeared to have more to say. ‘Lambeth says he 
has seen so much of you,” she presently began. 

“He has been to see us very often; he has been 
very kind,” said Bessie Alden. 

“I dare say you are used to that. I am told there 
is a great deal of that in America.” 

“A great deal of kindness?” the young girl in- 
quired, smiling. 

“Is that what you call it? I know you have 
different expressions.” 

“We certainly don’t always understand each 
other,’ said Mrs. Westgate, the termination of 
whose interview with Lady Pimlico allowed her to 
give attention to their elder visitor. 

“I am speaking of the young men calling so much 
upon the young ladies,” the duchess explained. 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 219 


“But surely in England,” said Mrs. Westgate, 
“the young ladies don’t call upon the young men?” 

“Some of them do—almost!”” Lady Pimlico de- 
clared. “When the young men are a great partt.” 

“Bessie, you must make a note of that,” said 
Mrs. Westgate. ‘My sister,” she added, “is a model 
traveller. She writes down all the curious facts she 
hears in a little book she keeps for the purpose.” 

The duchess was a little flushed; she looked all 
about the room, while her daughter turned to Bessie. 
“My brother told us you were wonderfully clever,” 
said Lady Pimlico. 

“He should have said my sister,” Bessie answered 
—‘‘when she says such things as that.” 

“Shall you be long at Branches?” the duchess 
asked, abruptly, of the young girl. 

“Tord Lambeth has asked us for three days,” said 
Bessie. 

“JT shall go,’ the duchess declared, “and my 
daughter, too.” 

“That will be charming!” Bessie rejoined. 

“Delightful!” murmured Mrs. Westgate. 

“T shall expect to see a great deal of you,” the 
duchess continued. “When I go to Branches I 
monopolize my son’s guests.” 

“They must be most happy,” said Mrs. Westgate, 
very graciously. 

“I want immensely to see it—to see the castle,” 


220 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


said Bessie to the duchess. “TI have never seen one 
—in England, at least; and you know we have none 
in America.” 

“Ah, you are fond of ‘castles: ” inquired her 
Grace. 

“Immensely!” replied the young girl. “It has 
been the dream of my life to live in one.” 

The duchess looked at her a moment, as if she 
hardly knew how to take this assurance, which, from 
her Grace’s point of view, was either very artless or 
very audacious. “Well,” she said, rising, “I will 
show you Branches myself.’”’ And upon this the two 
great ladies took their departure. 

“What did they mean by it?” asked Mrs. West- 
gate, when they were gone. 

“They meant to be polite,” said Bessie, “because 
we are going to meet them.” 

“Tt is too late to be polite,’ Mrs. Westgate replied, 
almost grimly. “They meant to overawe us by their 
fine manners and their grandeur, and to make you 
lacher prise.” 

“Lacher prise? What strange things you say!” 
murmured Bessie Alden. 

“They meant to snub us, so that we shouldn’t dare 
to go to Branches,’ Mrs. Westgate continued. ; 

“On the contrary,” said Bessie, ‘“‘the duchess 
offered to show me the place herself.” 

“Yes, you may depend upon it she won’t let you 


AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 221 


out of her sight. She will show you the place from 
morning till night.” 

“You have a theory for everything,” said Bessie. 

“And you apparently have none for anything.” 

“I saw no attempt to ‘overawe’ us,” said the 
young girl. “Their manners were not fine.” 

“They were not even good!” Mrs. Westgate de- 
clared. 

Bessie was silent a while, but in a few moments 
she observed that she had a very good theory. 
“They came to look at me,” she said, as if this had 
been a very ingenious hypothesis. Mrs. Westgate 
did it justice; she greeted it with a smile, and pro- 
nounced it most brilliant, while, in reality, she felt 
that the young girl’s scepticism, or her charity, or, 
as she had sometimes called it appropriately, her 
idealism, was proof against irony. Bessie, how- 
ever, remained meditative all the rest of the day and 
well on into the morrow. 

On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. Westgate had 
occasion to go out for an hour, and left her sister 
writing a letter. When she came back she met Lord 
Lambeth at the door of the hotel, coming away. 
She thought he looked slightly embarrassed ; he was 
certainly very grave. “I am sorry to have missed 
you. Won’t you come back ?” she asked. 

“No,” said the young man, “I can’t. I have seen 
your sister. I can never come back?’ Then he 
looked at her a moment, and took her hand. ““Good- 


222 AN. INTERNATIONAL) EPISODE 


bye, Mrs. Westgate,” he said. “You have been very 
kind to me.” And with what she thought a strange, 
sad look in his handsome young face, he turned 
away. 

She went in, and she found Bessie still writing her 
letter—that is, Mrs. Westgate perceived she was 
sitting at the table with the pen in her hand and not 
writing. “Lord Lambeth has been here,” said the 
elder lady at last. 

Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale, serious 
face. She bent this face upon her sister for some 
time, confessing silently and a little pleading. “I 
told him,” she said at last, “that we could not go to 
Branches.” 

Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of irrita- 
tion. “He might have waited,’ she said, with a 
smile, “till one had seen the castle.” Later, an hour 
afterwards, she said, “Dear Bessie, I wish you might 
have accepted him.” 

“T couldn't,” said Bessie, gently. 

“He is an excellent fellow,” said Mrs. Westgate. 

“T couldn't,” Bessie repeated. 

“Tf it is only,” her sister added, “‘because those 
women will think that they succeeded—that they 
paralyzed us!” 

Bessie Alden turned away; but presently she 
added, “They were interesting; I should have liked 
to see them again.” 

“So should I!’ cried Mrs. Westgate, significantly. 


AN- INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 223 


“And I should have liked to see the castle,” said 
Bessie. “But now we must leave England,” she 
added. 

Her sister looked at her. “You will not wait to 
go to the National Gallery?” 

“Not now.” 

“Nor to Canterbury Cathedral ?” 

Bessie reflected a moment. ‘‘We can stop there 
on our way to Paris,” she said. 

Lord Lambeth did not tell Percy Beaumont that 
the contingency he was not prepared at all to like 
had occurred; but Percy Beaumont, on hearing that 
the two ladies had left London, wondered with some 
intensity what had happened—wondered, that is, 
until the Duchess of Bayswater came a little to his 
assistance. The two ladies went to Paris, and Mrs. 
Westgate beguiled the journey to that city by te- 
peating several times: “That’s what I regret; they 
will think they petrified us.” But Bessie Alden 
seemed to regret nothing. 








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